By Ron Lane
FOR the members of the Australian Amateur Boxing fraternity, one of the biggest tournaments on the calendar year will take place this month.
Starting on Wednesday the 24 August and finishing on Saturday 27 August, the tournament will be for the Australian Golden Gloves.
With the Commonwealth Games fast approaching fighters from both our local clubs, Israel Kani from Noosa Box Office (NBO) Noosaville and Mark Owens from Impact Boxing Academy Cooroy, will be keen to compete in as many tournaments as possible.
Despite being some four years away, the Tokyo Olympics are also definitely a big part of the future plans for some of these fighters.
However, in the immediate future there is a big international tournament to be contested in Ireland and Australia has been invited to compete.
This, however, creates a problem. With Australia being so far away from Ireland and European tournaments, the cost of getting our representative in to these rings can be huge.
However, without international competition a lot of our fighters will never reach their full potential and, worst of all, our lack of medals on the Olympic stage will continue.
For these titles the Impact club will be represented by a team of 11 fighters and NBO will have a team of seven.
Following a very successful entry into the Wide Bay Championships, which saw the Impact club enter seven fighters and come home seven titles, preparation for the Golden Gloves has been good.
“However, with fighters coming from all over Australia to contest the Golden Gloves, the competition will be very tough – the best the country has to offer,” said coach Mark Owen.
In the meantime the Impact club continues to run its boxing classes for the junior students at Noosa High. Now in its third week of this season, the classes under strict supervision, teach the basic skills, and is very well attended.
Teachers are very happy with the students’ attitude to the classes. The fact that it is in the fourth year speaks for itself.
This Saturday the NBO will host an open gym sparring session starting at 9am with clubs from neighbouring districts such as Deception Bay and Brisbane visiting.
“This will give all fighters the opportunity to get good quality sparring which is essential for those wishing to be in peak condition for the Golden Gloves,” said coach Kani.
Last year in mid-June, a similar event was held at the NBO and was a great success with teams coming from all over the state.
The sessions will be open to the public, so to any boxing fans interested in watching a morning of top sparring the NBO gym will be the place to go. Admission is free.
