India’s Boxing Next Wave
- Mint profiles Priya Ghanghas and Preeti Pawar as part of a rising wave in Indian boxing. - The article notes Priya is from Dhanana, Haryana, a village that has produced world champions. - Mint ties their rise to a lineage starting with Vijender Singh’s 2008 Olympic bronze and growing domestic infrastructure (livemint.com).
Priya Ghanghas and Preeti Pawar are part of a younger Indian boxing group now moving from domestic circuits into Asian and Olympic-level bouts. (livemint.com) At the Asian Boxing Championships in Ulaanbaatar in April 2026, Priya and Preeti both reached the quarter-finals to secure medals for India under the tournament’s format. Preeti then beat South Korea’s Olympic medallist Aeji Im in the semi-finals. (olympics.com, olympics.com) Preeti had already moved onto the bigger stage in 2023 and 2024. Olympics.com says she won bronze at the Hangzhou Asian Games to secure a Paris 2024 quota for India in women’s 54kg, then advanced to the pre-quarterfinals at the Paris Olympics. (olympics.com, olympics.com) Priya’s story is rooted in Dhanana, a village in Haryana’s Bhiwani region that Mint says has already produced world champions Sakshi Ghanghas and Nitu Ghanghas. Mint reports that Priya, 20, first wanted to wrestle before boxing pulled her in. (livemint.com) Mint places this run in a longer Indian boxing timeline that starts with Vijender Singh’s bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the country’s first Olympic boxing medal. That result turned Bhiwani into a reference point for Indian boxing talent and coaching. (livemint.com) The pipeline is not only local anymore. The Sports Authority of India says its National Centres of Excellence were built to give athletes coaching, sports-science support, diet plans and training facilities for Olympic sports. (sportsauthorityofindia.nic.in) Domestic competition has also widened the base. Olympics.com reported that the 2025 elite women’s tournament drew boxers from 12 leading teams, including Haryana, Railways, Punjab, Delhi and Services, under the Boxing Federation of India setup. (olympics.com) That structure is producing depth across weight classes, not just one star. At the National Boxing Championships in Noida in January 2026, Lovlina Borgohain won 75kg and Nikhat Zareen took the 52kg title, showing how established names and newer boxers are sharing the same circuit. (olympics.com) India’s men also added to that picture in Ulaanbaatar, where Vishvanath Suresh won the 50kg gold and the men’s team finished with six medals. The women’s side, with boxers like Preeti and Priya, is now arriving in the same medal conversation. (olympics.com, olympics.com) The through line runs from Vijender’s 2008 bronze to villages like Dhanana and into national training centers and multi-team domestic tournaments. Priya Ghanghas and Preeti Pawar are the latest names to emerge from that system, not the only ones. (livemint.com, sportsauthorityofindia.nic.in, olympics.com)
