The opening of the Queensland border enabled the HP staff to travel up north to visit athletes in their daily training environment (DTE) together with their home coaches. It was the first opportunity for the National Head Coach to meet up with and congratulate the support teams of those local athletes that had won qualification to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games since the Asia/Oceania qualifier. Three of the so far five qualified athletes live in the Brisbane area so it is a great credit to Boxing Queensland and the local boxing community. 
The great challenge now is how to maintain the focus for those athletes and plan a programme over the next twelve months that will help them to arrive in Tokyo as well prepared as possible. The rapidly changing situation for everybody that the Covid-19 virus is causing is making it extremely difficult to make any long-term plans, so the emphasis must be placed on desired outcomes from mesocycles or even weekly microcycles. Queensland is one of the few Member Associations that have progressed to full contact training since the initial lockdown period, so the athlete’s training programmes do not have to be greatly modified albeit there is as yet no actual competition.
I witnessed Skye Nicolson sparring again at the Albert Boxing club under the watchful eye of her home coach Wayne Tolton twice during my visit and again at the open day at Hinterland Boxing Club organised by Stephen Pitt and BQLD. Paulo and Austin Aokuso are maintaining a good level of fitness continuing their development with home coach Geoff Frazer, working hard in demanding S&C and sparring sessions. Mark Wilson also continues his fantastic work pushing Justis Huni to even greater heights at an elite level on the world stage down at his Bethania gym.
 

The National Futures Program consistently stayed active in July with State Futures Camps being delivered in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales. Each camp strictly followed the relevant State COVID-19 hygiene guidelines. Big thanks to camp special guests Dennis Hogan (World title challenger), Mark Lucas (Commonwealth Games rep) and Kingsley Enadeghe (Nigerian Commonwealth games rep).

The National Futures Coach is continuing to actively engage members of the Futures program through the private Facebook group, ensuring that the Victorian members of the program are kept involved even during the lockdown.

Upcoming Futures camps

• NT: August 9
• WA: August 9
• ACT: August 16
• QLD: August TBA

Boxing QLD News

Boxing Queensland (BQLD) is about to recommence competition boxing and held 2 very successful weekends of comp sparring, development and R&J seminars.

On Saturday 18 July, Middlemount Boxing Club in North QLD hosted a day which consisted of athlete development sessions (3 sessions with Coach Mark Evans & Jessica Cashman) and a R&J seminar which saw 3 new participants and 4 current officials complete their refresher course. The R&J seminar coincided with our comp sparring to allow the new officials to put what they’d just learnt into action and get a feel for it. The day saw in excess of 70 athletes and coaches in attendance.

Saturday 25 July saw a very similar day at Hinterland Boxing Club on the Sunshine Coast in South East QLD where probably the biggest R&J seminar for BQLD was held with in excess of 30 participants sitting the course and then judging the organised comp sparring on one of the 3 rings that where set up in the venue. It was great to see the turn out and the support behind Boxing QLD.

Our tournaments commence Saturday 8 August in Townsville, followed by Saturday 15 August in Brisbane at Eastside Boxing Club. All events can be found under the Events section of the BQLD website.

BQLD is refreshed and ready to finish the year off on a high positive note in what has been a very tumultuous year for everyone.

Boxing NSW News

Boxing NSW held their AGM, 18 July. An election was held and the following positions have been filled:

• President: Sean Fitzpatrick
• Vice President: Steve Mannix
• Treasurer: Malcom Joseph Walker
• Secretary: David Condor
• Combat Sport Liason Oofficer: Mark Grech
• Junior Development Coach: Keefe Mo

• North and Far North Coach Regional Director: Dean Groth

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