BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
SOLOMON Islands national amateur boxers will compete in 10 different weight classes at the Pacific Games later this year to help maximize the country’s chances of winning more gold medals in the multi-sport event in Honiara.
In an interview with RAW SPORTS, the country’s national boxing head coach John San said the amateur boxing weight classes are light flyweight, flyweight, bantamweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, cruiserweight, light heavyweight, heavyweight, and super heavyweight.
He said with the Pacific Games 2023 (PG2023) scheduled to begin in November, the national boxing training squad is now focusing their priorities and commitments on specific high-performance scheduled training sessions at the Solomon Islands Institute of Sports facility to perform well ahead of the Games in Honiara.
“We are now concentrating and focusing on techniques, skills, fitness, speed, and power.
“All these components are connected. So we need to work on every area that we see needs improvement.
“We want to concentrate more on boxing ‘Skills sessions’ such as sparring, body conditioning, and boxing combinations, hitting punching bag drills, back walk, and other exercises to sharpen the boxers,” San said.
However, San said as the Pacific Games 2023 is just five months away, they are also eyeing to participate in a few international and domestic amateur boxing competitions this month of May.
“These planned boxing competitions are to enable us to formalize the Solomon Islands’ final boxing squad before the end of September to represent the country at this year’s Pacific Games,” the coach said.
“We have around 50 boxers here. Every day during the week we conducted sparring sessions to expose and prepare our boxers for upcoming major boxing competitions this year.
“We want to finalize a national boxing squad comprising 17 boxers – 13 males and 4 females.
“The final male boxers will compete in the 10 weight categories, whilst the female boxers will compete in only certain weight categories at the Pacific Games this year,” he added.
He’s optimistic that the Solomon Islands boxing team will secure five gold medals at this year’s Pacific Games.
“We aim to win five Gold Medals for the country. One gold medal to come from female boxers, while another four medals from the male boxers,’’ said.
Meanwhile, he said that they are now preparing to participate in a scheduled boxing competition that’s expected to be held on 17 May in Queensland, Australia.
Likewise, they will also participate in this year’s Oceania Youth Games in Samoa, which will take place on May 27.
“We also have identified four boxers which includes a female and three male to attend the boxing competition in Samoa this month.
“We have many competition programs scheduled to take place ahead of this year’s Games in Honiara and one of them is to host an in-country boxing tournament where we intend to invite boxers from neighboring Pacific Island countries,” he said.
San is not new to the boxing arena, he had previously represented the country in major regional and international boxing competitions which includes the national boxing championship, Pacific Games, and the Ocean Games in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Fiji.
“I believe I have more experience from these boxing competitions, and I know what is like to be a boxer in the ring, both at the regional and international level.
“Over the years until now, I have associated myself with many boxing coaches in the country,’’ he added.
