By Ron Lane
Boxing Queensland hosted the State Amateur Boxing Championships last weekend at the Eagles Sports Complex in Mansfield, Brisbane.
Once again Cooroys Impact Boxing Academy came away with medals. From a team of 10 fighters, the final tally was six gold and three silver.
With these titles being a step toward the Commonwealth Games selection, it was the goal of Impact coach Mark Evans to ensure that his top four Elite grade fighters Taylah Robinson, Bryce Hegarty, Luke Martin and Tyler Blizzard made it through to the final selection tournament for the Commonwealth Games- The National Titles. This tournament will be held in November in NSW.
At the completion of the State Titles, a new member of the Impact team had made, as the name implies, a real Impact. Her name was Paige Robinson. Boxing in the 38kg Division not only did she win the State Title, but her outstanding performance was further recognised when she was named as the School Girl Fighter of the Tournament.
Her first fight of the evening was something of a sensation when she won a unanimous decision (despite being a relative novice) against an opponent with a 7 and 0 win and loss record. We wish her well for the future.
Others to perform well and come home with gold were Ella Boot, Abbey Slavin and Chloe Slavin. Once again the team spirit and, in particular, their code of conduct away from the ring, was very noticeable. Well done to all club officials.
During the course of the tournament, coach Mark Evans, who recently returned from the World Championships in Hamburg, Germany, (where he officiated as the assistant coach of the Australian team) took the opportunity to address a meeting of Queensland’s high performance coaches.
The reason for the meeting was for Evans to put forward and introduce for discussion a new training concept; a concept which he calls centralised training program for Queensland. Not only did he explain the program, but he emphasised his desire to “implement the program throughout the state of Queensland.”
The program would consist of three squads, Junior, Youth and Elite; selection for these squads would be performance based. During his presentation, he emphasised the importance of all coaches working together as one. “Their main aims would be to get the squads together every six to eight weeks for training sessions and also publicise the program in the media. This would give our young fighters public exposure; but most important of all the opportunity to maintain a high standard of performance. These steps would, of course, create incentive. Those who don’t perform would be removed and other young fighters invited to join. This would give goals for all to achieve and also give them exposure to National officials such as selectors and coaches.”
His presentation was well received and those present were unanimous in their support. “This is something that we are badly in need of,” one coach said.
Should this be implemented, a side but very important factor would be that possible sponsors from the world of big business could be encouraged to get involved. The major hurdle at present is finance.
With Australia being where it is, lack of sponsorship makes it virtually impossible to attend the major tournaments overseas; and these countries are the learning fields of future Olympic champions.
