FORMER IRISH BOXER BERNARD DUNNE has become the new High-Performance Director with the Boxing Federation of India.
This comes six months after the former Super Bantamweight world champion left his role in Ireland. Dunne has been on leave from the IABA since the Tokyo Olympics for contentious reasons.
In October 2021, he submitted a complaint against two volunteers in connection with the dissemination of an anonymous SWOT Analysis Position Paper in February 2021. Dunne was not consulted about the paper at the time and left the role shortly after holding the post from 2017-2022.
The Clondalkin native is the third High Performance Director lost to the IABA since Billy Walsh went to America in 2016.
Now Dunne is back in boxing. He will work with Team India as their High-Performance Director ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Talking about the appointment of Dunne, Boxing Federation of India's President Ajay Singh said: "We are delighted to announce Bernard Dunne as the high-performance director of the Indian team.
BREAKING NEWS 🤩 — Boxing Federation (@BFI_official) October 17, 2022
Focused to win medals from @Paris2024 BFI has appointed Irish Olympic Medal Winning High Performance Director #BernardDunne as the new High Performance Director. BFI & Dunne will work to take 🇮🇳 Boxing to next level 👏@AjaySingh_SG @debojo_m#PunchMeinHaiDum pic.twitter.com/i5n0ruWNPg
"He was a legendary boxer and has also done exceptionally well while working with the Ireland team. As a federation, we are focussed on doing everything that is required for our boxers to bring glory to the country. This is a major boost to our aim of winning medals at the Paris Olympics. With the amount of experience and success he has under his belt, he is the perfect fit for this role. I'm sure Dunne will guide our boxers to the next level of performance. We welcome him and wish him the best luck."
“India has huge boxing talent and its boxers have been performing exceedingly well,” Dunne said in a statement.
“It will be a great opportunity for me to work with them and contribute to their success. I’m very excited to join the team and take the standards of Indian boxing to a new high altogether."
Under Dunne's leadership, Ireland won European, World and Olympics gold medals. One of the beneficiaries of Dunne's work was Portland row native Kellie Harrington, who won a gold medal at Tokyo Olympics admitted that Ireland's loss is India's gain in a Twitter post.
"Irelands Loss, India's gain to say I am disappointed that we have lost him, and we could not do our best to keep him is an understatement. Such a pity. But all the best to Bernard on this new journey," the Dubliner said.
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