Canberra Boxing Bulletin - Edition 38 - July 2004

Big show on Saturday 7^th August

Our next ACT tournament is on Saturday 7^th August at the Italo-Australian Club, Franklin St., Forrest. Weighin for boxers is 12-2pm and the show commences at 6pm. Admission is $20 (or $10 youth/concession) and there will be cash door prizes.

This show features South Australia versus ACT bouts, plus bouts against Queensland boxers including national junior champion Nick Savidis (Qld) who is matched with ACT’s Kobi Guarini. It will be a busy night with plenty of locals on the programme, so make sure you get there early to get a good seat. Doors and bar open 5.30pm.

New Committee elected at AGM

The annual general meeting re-elected Rob Barron as President, & elected Daniel Armstrong as Vice-President, Julia Felton as Secretary and Tony Whelan as Treasurer. Elected Board members are Carl Ruhen and Colette Read. Bob Chittenden was re-appointed to the Board as Referee & Judge Coordinator.

The position of Assistant Secretary is vacant and we are looking for people interested in helping out with the administration – call us if you think you might be the person for this job.

The Board appointed Carl Ruhen as Registrar. Carl will process all boxer registrations, which should continue to be sent to our postal address. Remember that you need to submit registrations 10-14 days before a tournament or you may miss out. Incomplete registration applications will be sent back to you unactioned, so take care to read the form carefully and include all the required documents.

Canberra boxers overseas

National 81kg under-17 champion Dennis Arthur was on the Australian team to the World Junior Championships in Korea last June, with Australian team coach Don Abnett. Dennis went the distance with a hugely-experienced Kazakstan boxer – well done Dennis, a great job and a good development experience.

Our 69kg champion Gerard O'Mahony is in Europe with the the Australian boxing team, training in France prior to the start of the Olympic Games on 13^th August. To help with Gerard's expenses whilst he is away from work, there is a raffle being run with some great prizes. Tickets are available at the Underground Gym and should be on sale at our next tournament.

Olympic teams

AIBA sends boxers from 5 continents (Oceania, Africa, America, Asia and Europe) to the Olympics. The more populous continents get several entrants per weight division, but Oceania gets only one entrant per division. The Australian team is as follows:

PETER WAKEFIELD (SA 48kg), BRAD HORE (QLD 51kg), JOEL BRUNKER (NSW 54kg), RYAN LANGHAM (QLD 57kg), ANTHONY LITTLE (WA 60kg), ANOUSHIRVAN NOURIAN (NSW 64kg), GERARD O'MAHONY (ACT 69kg), JAMIE PITMAN (NSW 75kg), ADAM FORSYTH (WA/AIS 91kg)

The 81kg slot for Oceania was filled by Soulan Pownceby from New Zealand, and the 91+kg slot by Doug Hawke from Tonga. Details of each continent's Olympic boxing team to Athens can be seen at the AIBA website, www.aiba.net

Sports Stars night 4th September at the Auditorium

On Saturday 4th September 2004, the Canberra Police & Citizens Youth Club is holding a fundraising evening at the Tuggeranong Valley Rugby Union Club's new Auditorium in Erindale.

 This will be a "Sports Stars Evening" – and will feature several guest stars (including Kostya Tszyu, Johnny Lewis, Jai Taurima, plus other local sports stars). The evening will include a sports memorabilia auction, a comedian and 4 Golden Gloves Championship amateur boxing bouts.  It is anticipated that in excess of 700 people will attend the event. Kostya Tszyu has kindly offered to be available for autographs. We'll post more details via Broadcast email soon.

 There will also be a Kickboxing night at the Auditorium on Saturday night 11^th September, run by Planet Max.

Wanted: photographs of boxers and coaches

We want good pics of our boxers and coaches to use in the newsletter, on posters, in press releases and on our website. We'll be soon coming around with a camera looking for volunteer stars, but if you already have some pics we can borrow, call Tony on 0407 266920

DRUGS & ANTI-DOPING AWARENESS

ACT coaches and their boxers should be aware of the circumstances in which they may find themselves in regard to drug use and the Olympic anti-doping policy which is endorsed by Boxing Australia (BA).

Recent national publicity about other Olympic athletes shows how foolhardy it is to ingest foods or drugs that are banned by the anti-doping organisations. The affect on careers is disruptive and sometimes permanent, even if results are unproven or verdicts later overturned.

Boxers competing at State and National levels and higher can be subject to anti doping scrutiny and testing. Obligations to athletes under the BA policy are repeated below for your information and the full policy document is drawn to your attention and is available on the internet at  www.boxing.org.au/ba/documents/2003anti_doping_policy.pdf

“3. Obligations

3.1 All athletes must:

·     be knowledgeable of and comply with all anti-doping policies and rules applicable to them, namely the “Code”(the World Anti-Doping Code), this policy and the policies of anti-doping organizations.

·     be available for sample collection conducted according to the Code

·     take responsibility in respect of anti-doping for what they ingest and use, and

·     inform medical personnel of their obligation not to Use Prohibited Substances and Prohibited Methods and to take responsibility to make sure that any medical treatment received does not violate the anti-doping policies and rules applicable to them.”

2^nd Commonwealth Youth Games 2004 – Bendigo

Details will shortly be available on the 2^nd Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Bendigo between 30 Nov and 4 Dec this year. Representatives from most Commonwealth countries will take part. Amateur Boxing has participated in every Commonwealth Games program since 1930 but this is the first time boxing will be held at the Youth Games.

There will be a restricted number of weight divisions (54, 57, 60, 64, 69, 75kg) to keep the numbers manageable. Entrants will be aged 17-18 years old, but the exact wording of the age criterion is still to be advised. We will post the official details on our Broadcast email list as soon as we receive them.

Planning for 2005 – what, already?

Coaches, boxers, judges, supporters – let us know what you think we should be doing about the tournament programme in 2005. Should we have more tournaments? Do you like the current venue or do you want to suggest somewhere else? Is there something we can do to make the shows more attractive? Drop us an email via admin@boxingact.org.au or call 62496333 and leave us a message.

Can you help as a volunteer?

There are many important things to be done in boxing locally, which are not getting attention because we need more volunteers to take on a role. If you can help with some of the many jobs prior to or at our tournaments, or producing newsletters, or maintaining the website, or looking after some of the office work, we'd love to hear from you. For example, if you have graphic artist skills and would like to produce a neat poster design, let us know. Call Tony on 0407 266920 or leave a message for Julia on 6249 6333.

The next couple of years – some dates to plan for

The 2005 Australian Championships will be held in Perth probably in late March. The WA people arguably have the best-run tournaments in the country, so this should be a great championship event. Boxing ACT expects to select the 2005 ACT team for the Australian Championships at our first tournament in February.

The location for the 2005 Oceania Titles has not been determined, but may be in New Guinea around the end of April or early May. Next year also sees a World Seniors championship, expected to be in Moscow, no date yet.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games will be in Melbourne from 15-26 March. The ACT is due to host the Australian Boxing Championships in 2007. And Olympic chief Jacques Rogge has said that all sports at the 2008 Beijing Olympics will have women competing.

Masters boxing – age differential rule may change

For Masters boxers (aged 34+), the current national rule is that the age difference between boxers them cannot exceed 5 years.  USA Boxing has amended that figure to 10 years and Boxing ACT will consider an approach to Boxing Australia to do the same.

Amateur Boxer magazine

Some of you may have seen Amateur Boxer magazine, produced every month or so. It is not an official publication but tries to cover amateur boxing news all over Australia. They are looking for regular information about boxing in our area, plus good photos of our boxers and coaches to use in the paper. They run a profile each month on an individual boxer, and we have several who would be good candidates for this.

If you'd like to subscribe, contact editor Joe Bridges by email at joeb123@tpg.com or post to 11 Rochester Street, Morphett Vale SA 5162.  Single copies of the magazine are $4 but you can get 7 copies for $20 (say for a club or gym). This is a good way to learn more about the amateur scene round the country, and if a couple of locals contribute material regularly it helps keep ACT in the limelight.  Anyone want to contribute news, photos, or profile info? Call Tony on 0407 266920 to set it up.

Are you on our email list?

If you have an email address, you should be on our Broadcast email list to get regular updates and news from Boxing ACT. You can subscribe via the web by entering your email address at http://boxingact.org.au/mailman/listinfo/broadcast_boxingact.org.au 

You can also unsubscribe via the same website page. Or just email webmaster@boxingact.org.au and request to be added to the list. We do not share your email address with anyone and no-one sees your email address except the system administrator.