Arafura gold bodes well for future games
8:01a.m. 24th May 2005
Shamrock Gym boxers (l-r) Cheree Ward, Wade Foley, John Vaughan and Brad Hore brought back medals from the Arafura Games.
By KESTER HUBBARD
SHAMROCK boxers Todd Kidd and Brad Hore are well set for 2006 Commonwealth Games selection following gold medal-winning performances at the Arafura Games in Darwin last week.
The light-weight pairing led a standout performance at the Arafura Games from the Maroochydore-based Shamrock Boxing Gym, with the three other competitors, Wade Foley, John Vaughan and Cheree Ward all winning bronze medals.
The boxers face a long process to qualify for next year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but Shamrock coach Mike Foley said after dominating in each of their bouts Kidd and Hore were well placed.
Hore fought at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games but went to Darwin without being at his peak after an extended break from boxing.
But Foley, who was critical of his young star earlier this year for not being hungry enough, had nothing but praise for Hore who showed too much skill and ring-craft for Thai south-paw Chakkapong Chanpirom, defeating him 35:26 in the 51kg final on Friday night.
Brad tired a little in the final round of that fight, but he had too much experience for the other fighter,'' Foley said.
And that Thai fighter, he had the bye in round one and then his second round opponent withdrew so he only had one fight before the final, so he was nice and fresh.''Kidd was just as strong in the 63.5kg final, defeating West Australian Wayne Parsons 16:10.
We dominated and looked good. Todd wasn't too far away from being fighter of the tournament and Brad wasn't too far away either, he fought brilliantly,'' Foley said.
Considering he (Hore) has taken two and half to three weeks to lose 11.5 kilos, for a small fella, he got tired in the last round of the last fight but that's understandable, and with his smarts he controlled the fight the whole time.
And like I've said before about me rousing on him and giving him a hard time, if I didn't, he wouldn't have reached the quality of fighting that he can do.
Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind.''
Foley said Kidd would remain training in Darwin with the Scottish national team until later in the week.
This is the strongest ever Arafura Games, and there were Malaysian and Indonesian teams that are fairly strong in the lighter divisions, and there was Scotland and New Zealand, and we kicked arse all the way through,'' he said. It proved that what we are doing at home is working, and you don't need to go away on all of these trips to be successful.''
The Shamrock boxers are planning a fight tour to New Zealand on June 25 before the Queensland selection trials begin in Brisbane in July 1.
Boxers must qualify over three State fights before being eligible for selection for the Australian Commonwealth Games team.But as reigning State Champions, Hore and Kidd are not expected to be troubled at State qualifying.
They've still got to get through, and anything can happen. What we've got to do is make sure that we do the best and they have the ideal preparation,'' Foley said.
He said that preparation may even involve a training camp with national head-coach Bodo Andreass at the Shamrock Gym on Wises Road, away from the cold of Canberra where the Australian Institute of Sport was based.
Foley said Kidd had recently secured a $40,000 sponsorship with a Brisbane-based construction firm that would allow him to train full-time for the next 12 months at the Shamrock Gym.
He's the first one from the gym that has been able to do it (get sponsorship), which is really great news, but it's a bit disappointing that there are so many big companies on the Sunshine Coast that are not prepared to look after the other boys,'' he said.
The public don't understand how hard it is to win international boxing medals and how important sponsorship was to developing boxers into Commonwealth and Olympic champions.''
