Hadlow setting sights on Gold Coast
WITH a fourth national title locked away, Richie Hadlow is now setting his sights on bigger things.
The 29yearold Queenstown fighter has his eyes on next year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April.
While he will not find out if he has been selected for the Games until December, the light welterweight fighter, now ranked the world’s 27thbest amateur, is well on the way.
New Zealand is able to take a team of five to the event and Hadlow was one of three Kiwi gold medallists at the
Oceania
Games earlier this year, one of two selection events.
The other of those is the transtasman event at the
Manukau
Events Centre in Auckland on December 9.
At that, he will fight the yettobedetermined Australian No 1 light welterweight, who will also be the country’s representative at the Games.
Hadlow will have two leadin fights.
One will be against a yettobeconfirmed opponent in Gore in October.
A rematch against Sam BurdettClark, his opponent in the national final, at Queenstown event ‘‘The Thriller’’ has also been organised for November 25.
As well as those bouts, he will keep training hard and is going to focus on picking his moment to strike, rather than going for the kill the whole time.
‘‘I’m going to be working on calming down and working on trying to disguise power shots with combinations.
‘‘If you saw my fight at nationals, you’d probably concur that I wanted to take every round every second. I’ve got a very fullon fight style.
‘‘It’s not always going to work and I know that as well.
‘‘So I’ve got to work on just selecting my shots, letting combinations go and hiding the power shots within a combination, as opposed to just coming out swinging clubs like Bamm Bamm.’’
He had been happy to take home another national title in the 64kg and under category, although was not entirely happy with his performance.
Being used to going in as the underdog, he said it was a different experience carrying the favourite tag.
‘‘I think dealing with the actual expectations of people in the crowd and the supporters was actually another big thing for me.
‘‘So it wasn’t just in the ring, it was outside the ring as well.
‘‘When everyone expects you to absolutely dominate, I felt like that changed the way I fought a little bit, because I wanted to please I suppose, I wanted to perform.’’
However, having had exposure to that pressure would help for what was to come, although he was still embracing the underdog tag.
‘‘Qualitywise, in terms of competition, of course, I expect the best competition I’ve ever faced [at the Commonwealth Games].
‘‘But that’s what it’s all about, competing and being pushed to your limits.
‘‘So I’m excited about that. My experience has shown so far that I perform better when I’m the underdog or in that less expectant role.
‘‘So I’m excited. It will be my first Games and I’ll do the business, for sure.’’