2024 Olympic qualifying boxing tourney set for Altadena
Nearly 300 amateur boxers will duke it out at Loma Alta Park in Altadena next week to chase their Olympic dreams.
The three-day Southern California Golden Gloves boxing tournament will be at the park at 6 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. .
The tournament will feature male and female amateur boxers ages 18 and older from across Southern California and will serve as an Olympic Qualifying tournament for the 2024 Olympics in France.
According to California Golden Gloves delegate Fausto De La Torre, the winners of the single-elimination tournament in each weight class will move on to the state tournament in March. Winners from that tournament will then move on to the 2023 National Golden Gloves Championships in Philadelphia in May.
“Golden Gloves is one of the biggest names in amateur boxing,” De La Torre said. “It’s an inspiration to a lot of people to have that title under their name, everyone wants to be part of Golden Gloves.”
For the past 25 years, De La Torre has also coached at Pasadena’s Villa Parke boxing program, hoping to pass on the tradition taught by his coaches to the next generation.
About 300 participate in the youth and adult programs, from ages 8 to 76.
De La Torre said the program’s focus is teaching Olympic boxing fundamentals to the community, training students six months before they get in the ring so that skills like discipline and commitment translate into their everyday lives. He said their motto is “Building champions of life.”
But many students are also in it for the competition, De La Torre said, and the Villa Parke program will have eight boxers hoping to advance in the tournament: Antonia Aguilar, Michael Diaz, Asia Eng, Roger Gomez, Diamond Machabie, Fatima Martinez, Michael Moore and Christopher Tobias.