Former boxer Abid Khan starts coaching after plight as auto driver goes viral

Abid Khan, the boxing coach-turned auto driver, whose video went viral on Twitter, is back to coaching. The former Chandigarh boxer is coaching children at a park near his EWS flat in Dhanas, Chandigarh. Khan’s story was brought to the limelight by Saurabh Duggal, an independent journalist, on his YouTube channel Sports Gaon . Popular personalities such as 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medallist Vijender Singh , 2010 Commonwealth Games champion Manoj Kumar and Bollywood actor Farhan Akhtar shared the 60-year-old’s video. And this is what prompted Khan to start coaching again. “It’s the result of the motivation and support of all the sports lovers that I am coaching children in whatever way I can. In the past too, I wanted to pursue coaching but there was no motivation or support. Now I am glad that people have got to know about me and I want to show the same passion in coaching as I used to show while boxing in my younger days,” Khan was quoted as saying by Indian Express .

“It’s good to know that people like Vijender, Manoj and Farhan Akhtar have come to support me and when I get to talk with them, I will tell them that they will get to see champions from my coaching,” he added. A former diploma holder in coaching from the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, Khan revealed that he went to Saudi Arabia since he couldn’t find a job. And on return to India, he started to operate as an auto driver, and later as a driver-loader. “When I had started boxing, I thought it will help my family to improve our financial condition. When I completed the diploma from NIS, I tried a lot for a job but it was of no avail and I went to Saudi Arab for work. After my return, I plied my pick-up auto starting 2004 before the auto was scrapped and I had to work as a driver-loader in recent years. All these years made me believe that in this country, poor sports-persons only suffer,” Khan revealed.