Santiago Nieva eyes early LA 2028 Olympics qualification for Indian Boxers after 2026 season high

Nieva was the High Performance Director of Indian Boxing from 2017 to 2021. His second stint within the Indian boxing ecosystem got underway in 2025 as the National Women’s Team Head Coach.  | Photo Credit: PTI

Santiago Nieva has already started looking beyond the 2026 Asian Games where women boxers contributed to three medals, including two gold; the focus now shifting towards securing as many Olympic quotas as possible at the earliest, for the Los Angeles 2028 Games.

The first major Olympic qualification pathway begins at the World Championships 2027 in Kazakhstan. “The first qualifier will be in Kazakhstan, which is the World Championships, where ideally we get as many quotas there as possible,” Nieva said in a statement issued by the Sports Authority of India.

“Later on, there will be the Asian Olympic Qualifier and 2028 will have another two Olympic Qualifiers.”

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A stunning show by the eves at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow - six medals including five gold, and now a three-medal show at Aichi-Nagoya, caps off a wonderful year for coach Nieva and the Indian women pugilists. The Argentine coach has his priorities set for the Indian team – get as many of his wards qualify for LA 2028 at the earliest stage so that the team gets adequate time for Olympic-specific preparation.

“Ideally if we get to qualify next year early on, we get a good preparation time,” Nieva continued. “It will be a tough pathway and hopefully we can qualify as many boxers as possible so we can form a strong team for the Olympics.”

Nieva was the High Performance Director of Indian Boxing from 2017 to 2021. His second stint within the Indian boxing ecosystem got underway in 2025 as the National Women’s Team Head Coach. Nieva attributes much of the team’s success this calendar year to a year-long preparation programme that included strong international competition, domestic camps and quality sparring.

The Indian women’s boxing team has hustled hard at the Sports Authority of India National Centre of Excellence in Patiala ahead of these major international tourneys this year. Nieva pointed to the instrumental support structure, mentioning that around 40 people work with the boxers at the SAI centre, including around 20 coaches and another 20 support staff.

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“We have a staff of 40 people working with the boxers, around 20 coaches and another additional 20 support staff,” he said. “We have improvements in all areas, sports science, the boxing hall, the boxing equipment and so on.” The set-up, Nieva believes, compares favourably with the best boxing programmes internationally. “I would say there are not many countries who have better support,” he said.

India also brought the Dominican Republic and Iran teams to Patiala for training before moving to Japan for the final phase, where the boxers were able to get further quality sparring. “We had a good final preparation in Japan where we also got good sparring. We came very well prepared for the Asian Games. Having said that, we cannot rest on this. We have to continue looking forward and in the end we all want great success at the next Olympics,” Nieva added.