Preparation pays off in boxing ring

Hours of training in the gym paid off for Tokoroa boxers Eugene Amohia and Leith McCloskey as they took away their first win.

The 16 year-old friends spent almost two years preparing for their first competitive amateur fight and it all paid off.

Proud coach Tony De Vorms wanted the boys to do everything possible to be ready for their fight.

‘‘We want them as prepared as they can be,’’ he said.

Alongside personal fitness training, the boys spend an hour and a half of sparring and technique training twice a week.

‘‘ There’s a lot of training involved with techniques,’’ he said.

De Vorms also wanted them to be mentally prepared for the competitive nature of the sport. ‘‘That person is there to beat them,’’ he said. Despite his confidence before the fight, Amohia felt the nerves once he was face to face with his opponent.

‘‘I was pretty much the same but then I started getting nervous,’’ he said.

The training paid off and he used his coaches’ training to win the match.

‘‘The first hit he landed woke me up then I said to myself ‘I need to do this’ and I remembered what my coaches said,’’ Amohia said.

Amohia entered the 60kg class and McCloskey was in the heavier 71kg class for the Rotorua Amateur Boxing tournament held earlier this month.

Since the competition, coaches De Vorms, Jack Williams and Crispin Hopkinson, have been working with the pair on improvements.

McCloskey hopes to become fitter before next month’s fight.