Welsh Olympians – doing us proud!

It’s been a really exciting week of sport with the start of the 2012 Olympic Games. I have been trying to watch as much as possible especially the boxing. It’s been a great start for the GB team and for the two Welsh boxers, Fred Evans (St Josephs Newport) and Andrew Selby (Splott ABC) with both advancing through to the last 8.

On Friday (3rd Aug) both Fred & Andrew were in action; Fred beat Egidijus Kavaliauskas of Lithuania 11-7 and a 19-15 win over Ilyas Suleimenov of Kazakhstan means that Andrew has also progressed through to the quarter finals. Good luck to both and lets hope for more success this week!

Olympics aside, the last 6 weeks have been extremely busy with a number of events taking place in Wales, UK and Europe:

•    GB Schoolboy Championships – Congratulations to Kyran Jones (60kg) from Gelligaer on his performances winning a gold medal and to all the other boxers and coaches who took part.
•    European Junior Championships – Three boxers were selected to compete at the European Junior Championships in Bulgaria; Kallum Skhane (46kg – Gwynfi), Jonathan Clatworthy (70kg – Porthcawl & Pyle) and Jamie Evans (66kg – Splott). Both Kallum & Jamie lost their first round bouts and Jonathan gave an excellent performance beating Skrypchenko from the Ukraine by 14:8. Jon went on to lose by 1 point to Aliaksandr Khalayheu from Belarus in the quarter final. All boxers returned having a good experience and understanding the demands of international competition. I hope this experience stands them in good stead for next years World Juniors and European Youth Championships.
•    France International – Eight Youth boxers travelled to Lyon to take on French Youth team:

52kg – Jamie Viscount (Colcot ABC)
56kg – Jack Parry (Gilfach Goch)
56kg – Ieuan Regan (Torfaen Warriors)
60kg – Ben Crocker (Premier ABC)
64kg – Ricky Rowlands (Jones Gym)
69kg – Aled Cook (Gwynfi)
75kg – Aaron Bird (Bonymaen)
91kg – Kody Davies (Lions Den)

We had two wins from Aled Cook and Kody Davies but it was a tough night that gives us a clear picture of what we need to do in the build up to the World Youth Championships.

We will now look to compete at the Brandenburg Cup in August and the Ahmet Comert at the start of September. Before these two competitions we will have a number of training weekends with Scotland and the Army.

Over the last month Cardiff University has hosted the second AIBA Road to London training camp. With 80 boxers and coaches from all over the world it has been extremely busy but a great opportunity for the WABA to be a part of the preparation of Olympic boxers. A big thank you to John Waith, Mike Wardle and Carl Pesticcio for their help over the 3 week camp. I must also thank Mike Jones from Baglan and Lee Farrell from Cwmbran who attended the camp to support the coaches and also use it as an opportunity to learn more about the various styles of international boxing.

Over the next month, Colin & I will visit North Wales for the second forum. I am looking forward to giving an update on the Performance Programme, Coach Education and hearing what ideas the Northern Division have for developing a regional programme.

The creation of our new website is really picking up pace and will be packed full of useful features for clubs, coaches, boxers and anyone who has an interest in amateur boxing. I will look to send a short form out to all clubs that will provide all the information needed to build an individual section for each club and hopefully this will be an easier way to update your information that is currently done by the census forms.

That’s all for now.

James

James Thomas
WABA – Performance Director

Championships galore

Its been a while since my last blog. It seems like there’s been so much going on, with lots of championships and competitions:

At the start of May, three women traveled to Quinhuangdao in China for the AIBA Women’s World Championships. The draw was a pretty tough one, with Lynsey drawing Xu from China on homesoil, Becky drawing Natasha Jonas from England and Lauren drawing Poteyeva from Russia.

Whilst all the women did everything the coaches asked of them, they did not progress past the first stages which was hugely disappointing but the coaches were very pleased with some areas and we now have a lot more work to do over the next year.

At the same time, the seven men traveled to the Troxy Centre in London for the GB Championships. There were some unlucky performances in the semi finals with Morgan Jones (81kg – Merthyr Ex) and Daniel Richards (75kg – Heads of Valleys) both losing by just one point! We had a Gold medal from Jay Harris (Gwent ABC – 52kg) beating Joe McCulley from England 27-21 and we saw promising performances from Ashley Williams (49kg – Army), Sean Mcgoldrick (56kg – St Josephs), Thomas Hoar (64kg – Croeserw) and Zack Davies (60kg – Cwmgors).

During May there were also some excellent performances at Pirkka Tournament in Finland with Tyson Mochon and Connor McIntosh both winning Silver and Levi Griffiths, Shane Thomas and Dino Smith all winning Gold. Congratulations to the boxers and their clubs, Torfaen Warriors, Baglan and Blaenau Gwent.

We have continued to run the performance camps over May & June, working with Youths, Juniors, Women, Elite and Schoolboys. Blending specific boxing work with Strength & Conditioning, Nutrition and Physiotherapy has been received really well by the boxers and coaches.

The next round of Championships featured our Junior boxers who traveled to Scotland on 1st June. Again many promising performances from the 24 boxers, but congratulations must go to Jamie Evans (66kg – Splott ABC) and Jonathan Clatworthy (70kg – Porthcawl & Pyle ABC) for two outstanding gold medal winning performances. Both Jamie and Jonathan will travel to Bulgaria this week to compete at the European Junior Championships, along with Kallum Skhane (46kg – Gwynfi ABC) who after reviewing the performances with our new video analysis team that has been supported by Sport Wales, has also been selected to compete. Good luck to all three boxers.

This weekend, our Youth boxers traveled up to Liverpool to face England and Scotland in the GB Championships. With some real talent on show, our boys performed fantastically well with Kody Davies (90kg – Lions Den), Aaron Bird (75kg -Bonymean), Jordan Fisher (69kg – Rhondda) and Aled Cook (69kg – Gwynfi) advancing into the finals, and Kody, Aaron and Aled delivered Gold medals. Congratulations to the boxers, their coaches and clubs. Its going to be a busy few months for our Youth boxers, with the AIBA World Youth Championships in October, we are lining up plenty of opportunities to gain international experience, the first being a match against France on 30th June in Lyon, France.

Running alongside all of this we are now moving forward with the building of a new website that is befitting the needs of the sport. I hope to be able to share some of the ideas and features over the coming months and lets not forget that the GB Schoolboy Championships come to Wales in July (5th-7th) at the University of Glamorgan. I hope to see many of you there.

That’s all for now.

James

WABA Performance Director

Funding & Support confirmed – time to get started

We are now well into April and I am feeling quite excited about the months ahead.

Since confirming the funding and support from Sport Wales for the Performance Programme, we’re now full steam ahead with the programme camps for the Men’s, Women’s & Talent programmes. The first camp started last weekend at the Sport Wales National Centre with 10 Elite Men attending. The camps now start on Friday evening running through to Sunday afternoon, which exposes the boxers to the demands that will be expected of them at longer tournaments. It’s also a great opportunity to bring in support services in the form of nutrition, hydration testing and also strength & conditioning sessions which everyone seems to be enjoying!

I am also thrilled that Fiona Letton has joined the team as the Performance Coordinator. Fiona brings a lot of experience and energy to the team, and will be liaising with coaches and boxers on the training camps and international competitions over the next year. I know you’ll make her feel right at home!

The WABA Elite Championship Finals offered a great opportunity to see some of the talent we have in action and it also allowed Colin & I to confirm selections for the Women’s World Championships in China taking place in May. The three boxers selected are:

48kg – Lynsey Holdaway – Llantrisant ABC

60kg – Rebecca Price – Cwmcarn ABC

69kg – Lauren Price – Gelligaer ABC

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the boxers, their coaches and clubs. As part of their preparation, Lynsey and Becky will head to Estonia (along with five of our Elite men). It will be the first international competition they”ve had in a while and are due to face some tough opposition – great preparation for the Worlds. Unfortunately Lauren’s weight category is not featured in Estonia so we are currently looking at other options.

Pretty much straight after the WABA Championship finals, a squad of four girls were taken up to the GB Boxing Centre in Sheffield to join the full time Women’s programme for a 4 day training camp, which also included the 2010 51kg bronze medalist, Hanne Makinen from Finland, along with Nicola Adams, Natasha Jonas, Amanda Coulson and Savannah Marshall, so needless to say great sparring for our Welsh women!

Over the next two weeks it really begins to hot up, with a big training camp at the nearby Cardiff University. All three  programme groups will descend upon the venue chosen by AIBA for the Road to London Camps and all with different objectives:

• The Women’s programme will be very much focussed upon sparring and preparing for Estonia and, of course, the forthcoming World Championships. They will also be joined by some talented boxers from England to offer some good quality sparring.
• The Talent group, who will have their first camp, will be very much looking at their longer term development with some hydration testing, physiology testing and conditioning work.
• Last but not least, six Elite Men will join the camp as they prepare to travel to Estonia the following week to compete in the Olympic Gloves which will feature some strong development boxers  from England, Scotland, Scandinavia and Russia.

Then we will move into preparations for the GB Elite Men’s Championships that take place in May. The selected boxers will attend two preparation camps in Cardiff on 27th-29th April and 4th-6th May. So, like I said, really busy and really exciting to see so much activity going on! Congratulations to the following boxers and their clubs:

49kg – Ashley Williams (Army)

52kg – Jay Harris (Gwent ABC)

56kg – Sean Mcgoldrick (St Josephs ABC)

60kg – Zack Davies (Cwmgors ABC)

64kg – Thomas Hoar (Croeserw ABC)

69kg – Kristian Nagle (Splott ABC)

75kg – Daniel Richards (Heads of the Valley ABC)

81kg – Morgan Jones (Merthyr Ex ABC)

91kg – Lloyd Davies (Mountain Ash ABC)

91+kg – Craig Kennedy (Llanrumney ABC)

At the time of writing, Joe Cordina (St Joseph’s ABC) took on David Joyce from Ireland in the first round of the AIBA Olympic Qualification for Europe. It was a fantastic first round that saw Joe race into a 10-4 lead. However the experienced Irishman came back strongly in the second to force a standing count and take the lead by a score of 17-14.  A gutsy display from Joe but the experienced Irishman took the victory.

That’s all for now. I am keen to invite others to contribute to this blog, to give a different perspective on what we are doing, so you may hear from a boxer or a coach in the next update.

James

WABA Performance Director

AIBA Camp, Coaching forums and lots more…

Over the past 4-5 weeks there has been so much going on it would be easy to lose track!

The AIBA Road to London training camp began on 19^th February, with over 65 boxers and 15 coaches from 50 different countries descending on Cardiff. Colin Jones was appointed as the camp’s Head Coach and really pulled together a great programme.

All of the boxers and coaches really benefited from the camp, and that’s really testament to Colin’s hard work coupled with great support from staff and students at Cardiff University, as well as WABA coaches. It was also great to see some of our own boxers attend for sparring opportunities; quite timely with the Welsh Championships approaching and the Womens World Championships just around the corner (May 2012).

At the same time, I have been putting the final touches to the performance plan which has now been signed off and agreed by Sport Wales. This is a big step forward in securing increased funding to develop our most talented boxers. The next steps in really getting the programme going will be to notify the boxers and their coaches who will be invited to be part of the programme. Then we’ll appoint three programme coaches who will be responsible for delivering the Elite Men’s, Womens and Talent programmes alongside the National Coach. If you are interested in one of the coaching role’s click here to find out more.

Over the next week I will be looking to appoint the Performance Coordinator that will service all of the logistical requirements of the Performance Programme. With over 40 applicants, it was difficult to shortlist but I’m convinced we will get someone who can really help get things up and running quickly and smoothly.

We have had some good international performances in February and March. Fred Evans (St Josephs) winning gold, Andrew Selby (Splott) winning silver and Joe Cordina (St Jospehs) reaching the Quarter Finals at the Strandja in Bulgaria.

More recently, Sean McGoldrick (St Josephs) reached the semi finals, losing out to Salomo N’Tuve of Sweden and Zack Davies (Cwmgors) progressing to the final in Finland (GeeBee),  losing out to Sam Maxwell of England who was then awarded Boxer of the Tournament trophy. Congratulations to all the boxers, their clubs and coaches.

I’m now looking to secure places at the Olympic Gloves competition taking place in Estonia in April. This will be a good opportunity for our Women boxers preparing for the World Championships, as well as our Elite Men preparing for the GB Championships in May.

And a little closer to home, a Welsh team will be taking on an England Select from the Midland Counties. This will offer bouts to a range of boxers and will take place in Hereford on Saturday 17^th March from 7:30pm. So please do come and support our boxers.

At the end of the month, Colin & I will be completing the last of four divisional coaching forums. On 20th March we will be at the Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli (7:30pm – 9:30pm).  The three we have completed have been really useful and hopefully have given a lot of clubs and coaches the opportunity to ask questions on a number of areas. If you weren’t able to come along or you still have questions, please do get in touch, you can email me or leave a comment on the blog.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

James

A big year ahead

A very Happy New Year to you all; I hope you all had a great Christmas. 2012 has finally arrived – it’s going to be a fantastic year of sporting action and, more importantly, a successful year for Welsh Amateur Boxing.

We have a lot of major international competitions this year:

May 2012 – Women’s World Championships in China

June 2012 – European Junior Championships in Bulgaria

October 2012 – World Youth Championships, location TBC

So there are some great opportunities for our Welsh talents to experience boxing on the international stage and we will look at a number of additional competitions to help prepare them. And we certainly can’t forget the London 2012 Olympics! The boxing event will start on 28^th July, with the finals running from 9^th – 12^th August. Let’s hope Andrew Selby (Splott ABC) and Fred Evans (St Josephs ABC) can move through the stages to contend for medals.

This year has already been busy with two follow-up assessment camps for the Youth & Juniors. The camps have continued to use the same format as those before Christmas, but in addition we introduced hydration testing and body composition tests and all of the boxers have found it really useful when looking at preparing for competitions and in determining the best weight category to target.

We will now look to select a small group of boxers to work with on a more regular basis, but there will always be opportunities to be involved for both boxers and coaches. In February we will be seeing the senior men over two weekends (4/5 and 11/12 February) and then a weekend with the female boxers (18/19 Feb).

Once this work is completed in February, we will be in a position to launch the new look performance programme with the three groups I identified in my last blog.

Colin & I have this week completed the first Coaching Forum in North Wales. More than 30 coaches attended and 16 clubs were represented. It was great to meet so many of you and discuss ideas as to how we can work in the division. There’s a lot of work still to do, but I’m confident we can move the regional work forward.

We have another three coaching forums coming up:

9^th February – Village Hotel Cardiff – 7:00pm (South)

28^th February – Riverview Club Newport – 7:30pm (East)

20^th March – Stradey Park Hotel Llanelli – 7:30pm (West)

Please do come down to the forums – just let your divisional secretary know in advance.

February will also be a busy time for the Welsh Boxers on the GB Boxing programmes with Andrew Selby & Joe Cordina competing in the Strandja Tournament from 21-26 February (Sofia, Bulgaria). Fred Evans will also be competing in the Bocskai Tournamnet (Debrecen, Hungary). Best of luck to Andrew, Joe & Fred.

At time of writing, Zack Davies (Cwmgors ABC) has just returned from Sweden with the GB Boxing team beating Reduaone Kaya from Sweden 18:16. Congratulations Zack.

Please do keep sending in your comments – it’s always good to hear your thoughts and I appreciate the feedback. I’ll look to update you again at the end of February.

James

A great 2011 & and looking forward to 2012

Since my last blog update, I’ve visited Cardigan ABC, Chepstow ABC and most recently the St Josephs ABC club show , completing my first round of club visits. It’s been brilliant to meet the coaches, boxers and volunteers who make the clubs run. You’ve given me lots of information and ideas of how the performance department of the WABA can better support our most talented boxers. Thanks for making me feel so welcome!

After completing my visits, I am conscious that there are a lot of clubs that I haven’t visited and that there are coaches and boxers who I haven’t had the chance to speak with. This is something I’ve discussed with our National Coach, Colin Jones and we’ve decided that, working with the divisions, we will be offering ‘coaching forums’ throughout Wales in the New Year.

The idea of the forums is to give all the club coaches the opportunity to put across their ideas on how WABA work in the regions. It also gives Colin and I the opportunity to discuss our ideas of how the performance department of the sport will look to work. I hope all of the clubs will send their coaches and if you do have any specific areas you would like to discuss please do drop me an email:

25th January – North Wales – Beaufort Park Hotel, Mold – 6:30pm

9th February – South Wales – Village Hotel, Cardiff – 7:00pm

28th February – East Wales – Riverview Club, Newport – 7:30pm

20th March – West Wales –  Stradey Park Hotel, Llanelli – 7:30pm

I will make sure there are plenty of refreshments but please let your divisional secretary know if you are attending at least a week in advance. That way, I can make sure there is plenty of space – and food for everyone!

Over November and December, Colin and I have been running a number of assessment camps for junior and youth boxers. Over three weekends (two in Cardiff and one in Llandudno) we have seen more than 40 boxers and they’ve been exposed to different types of sparring as well as strength & conditioning sessions with Joe Hewitt from Sport Wales. The boys all performed well and I was really impressed with their attitude to training over the weekends. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the divisional secretaries for helping me collate all of the nominations. It was well worth it.

We’ll be inviting a number of the boxers back for a follow up camp in January (14th/15th & 21st/22nd), as well as completing similar assessments for Senior men and women in February (4th/5th, 11th/12th & 18th/19th).

Since my last update, there have also been a number of fantastic performances that are worthy of mention:

Aled Cook and Romeo Romaeo have been selected for the next round of GB Boxing assessments in January. Congratulations and good luck.

Andrew Selby put in a fantastic performance against Yafai Khlaid at York Hall in the Olympic Box-off to secure qualification to the 2012 Olympic Games. A fantastic achievement for Andrew, Pat Mahoney and Splott ABC. With Fred Evans already secured his spot, Wales now has two boxers who have qualified for London 2012 – fantastic! To top off Andrew’s brilliant year, last week he was named BOA ‘Olympic Athlete of the year’

Joe Cordina travelled out to Finland in November to compete in the Tammer Tournament. Joe progressed through the rounds and secured a gold medal performance in the final against the Russian Vaganov.

Sean McGoldrick took part in the Olympic Test event in November and performed well against some top level opposition. Sean secured a place in the final and delivered a gold medal performance beating Thailand’s Petchkoom.  Fred Evans also secured a bronze medal at the Olympic Test Event. Congratulations to Fred, Sean and to St Josephs ABC.

Well that’s about it from me, it’s been a really busy month and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of the boxers, coaches, club supporters, referees,  judges and all of the membership a very Merry Christmas and I look forward to working with you in the New Year.

James

James Thomas

WABA Performance Director

A busy month!

From Holyhead to Swansea and Newport to Chester, over the past few weeks I’ve embarked on a mini boxing tour of Wales! A fact finding mission really; to not only meet the people at the heart of the sport in Wales but to also introduce myself and the plans for boxing going forward.

Visits to Premier ABC, followed by St Joseph’s ABC in Newport and Splott ABC and then on to Deva near Chester and Red Dragon ABC in Holyhead, where it was great to see so many boxers training on cold and wet winter nights, have given me a real flavour of the picture of us as a boxing nation. I’m looking forward to taking up the invitations of clubs in Cardigan and Chepstow to expand on that by the end of the month.

The main focus for me over the next few months will be to develop the Performance Plan for WABA. This in essence will look at how we intend to work with our most talented boxers and coaches over the next two to four years with an overall aim of delivering success at the Commonwealth Games, other major competitions and contributing boxers to the GB Olympic Programme.

Alongside that it is essential for us to have a clear handle on which boxers we need to be supporting and working with; those that could potentially be medallists and/or representing Wales at the highest level. Nominations have been put forward from each division and I’m grateful for the inside knowledge from those that have communicated those names. We can now get that ball rolling.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the fantastic performances from our ladies at the Women’s European Championships. Two medals, a silver from Lynsey Holdaway (48kg – Llantrisant) and bronze from Lauren Price (69kg – Gelligaer), from four boxers is a great achievement. Charlene Jones (64kg – Merlin’s Bridge) and Becky Price (57kg – Cwmcarn) also did us proud , so a big congratulations goes to all four boxers and their coaches.

The next few days it will be the turn of our male boxers to take to the ring. Five Welshmen will travel to York Hall in London to compete in the GB Championships: The best of luck to:

Ben Baker (Cardigan ABC)

Sean Mcgoldrick (St Josephs ABC)

Joe Cordina (St Josephs ABC)

Mano Lee (Bonymaen ABC)

Lloyd Davies (Mountain Ash ABC)

And of course, I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing Andrew Selby the best of luck for his box-off against fellow GB boxer Khalid Yafai at the weekend – let’s hope he can secure a second Welsh Olympic qualifying spot for boxing.

James Thomas, WABA Performance Director

Welcome note from James Thomas

As the newly appointed Performance Director for WABA I wanted to use this blog to introduce myself to the boxing community in Wales and use it going forward to keep you all up to date with what I’m up to.

Boxing is a sport that I have always admired and love to watch, and the chance to work in Wales, where I have been living for nearly 10 years was too good to miss! I think it’s a great time for sport in Wales and amateur boxing really has the chance to make its mark at the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. WABA already has a history of success and that is something I want to build on over the coming years.

A little bit about me; I’m originally from North Yorkshire, yes a Yorkshire-man (someone has to be!) My sporting life was all around Rugby Union, I started playing at 11 years of age and progressed reasonably well, representing Yorkshire and England at youth levels whilst playing in the premiership for Leeds Tykes until a nasty ankle injury resulted in a far shorter career than I hoped for! I then started working in top level sport. I began by running one of the largest TASS Scholarship schemes in the UK at the University of Bath, working with athletes from a number of sports including: Judo, Rugby and Bob Skeleton. I then moved into Welsh Athletics setting up various Talent Development programmes and most recently working with the Paralympic Sport, Wheelchair Rugby, to set up their performance structures for success at 2012 and 2016.

My first week in the role has been pretty hectic; I’ve been setting up the new boxing office at the Sport Wales National Centre which will be a fantastic base for WABA, especially with the Performance Centre on site. We really have a presence here now. I then travelled to Baku on Wednesday for the latter stages of the World Championships. I had the pleasure of  watching some fantastic performances: Andrew Selby winning a silver medal in a bout that was too close to call and Fred Evans gaining Olympic qualification; a fantastic result for Wales and GB. Congratulations must go to the their clubs, Splott and St Josephs ABC.

The next few weeks back in Wales will be just as busy, I’m really keen to visit some of the clubs throughout Wales to gain more of an understanding of your needs and how we can improve performances at all levels. I have already booked in visits to a number of clubs including:

• Prince of Wales ABC (Cardiff)
• Premier ABC (Swansea)
• Splott Adventurer ABC (Cardiff)
• Red Dragon ABC (Holyhead)
• Deva Boxing Academy (Saltney/Chester)

The interviews for the National Coach position will take place over the next week and it will be a really important appointment for the future of the WABA. We then have a number of important competitions on the horizon:

1. The Womens European Championships in Rotterdam take place between 17th – 23rd October and will provide a real test for the four selected boxers (Lyndsey Holdaway, Rebecca Price, Charlene Jones and Lauren Price)
2. The GB Championships will be taking place at York Hall in London on 11th & 12th November, so please keep an eye out for the team selection announcement and get down to London to cheer on our boxers!

I will then be looking to identify the talented boxers we have in Wales that can become successful on the international stage, through a series of assessment camps, further information will be sent out soon. I will be working closely with GB Boxing to make sure our talented boxers have the opportunity to progress onto the Olympic programme as they hold a number of assessment days in November too.

I’m also keen to see how other successful performance programmes  in Wales work, so I will be visiting the Welsh Cycling performance programme at the Newport Velodrome and the Swim Wales programme in Swansea. They both have excellent records of Commonwealth success and also feeding athletes into the GB programmes, so I want to see what works well, what doesn’t and what can work for boxing.

Thanks for taking the time to read, I’d love to hear from you so please do leave a comment below and I will post an update over the next couple of weeks.

James