Tag Archives: Katie Taylor

AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 5/13/12!

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AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 5/13/12! – UPDATED!

More Preliminary Rounds – Sweet 16 plus an Elite 8!

Claressa Shields and Pooja Rani

Bouts in the Olympic Flyweight, and non-Olympic Bantamweight, Light Flyweight, Light Welterweight and Welterweight divisions dominate today’s AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Quinhuangdao, China.

If you are a fan of the USA Boxing team, that means Marlen Esparza, Christina Cruz and Raquel Miller competed and won today!!!

In the Sweet 16 for the Olympic Flyweight (51kg) Division, US Olympic hopeful Marlen Esparza sailed through to defeat Argentina’s Pamela Benavidaz by the score of 20:10.  This was Marlen’s first fight of the competition and great news for her as she continues her hunt for a place in the Olympics.  Marlen’s next bout is on May 15th against Viet Nam’s Thi Duyen Luu.

In the 54kg division, the Pride of New York City, six-time Golden Gloves Winner and USA Boxing National Champion, Christina Cruz, handily defeated Swiss fighter Nicole Corine Michel, by decision with the final score of 22:8. Christina will fight Norway’s Shora Rezaie Joahroni next on May 15th.

The USA’s Raquel Miller (69kg) fought a tough second bout against Canada’s Myriam Da Silva.  The score was 18:18, however, the decision was given to Raquel Miller who will go on to fight in the 69kg quarterfinals.  Her next bout will be on May 16th against Turkish boxer Bilgehan Karabulut.

Click here for the Full Bout roster for 5/13/12:

5:13:12 Full Bout Roster

Click here for full results for 5/12/12:

5:12:11 Results Session 2A

5:12:11 Results Session 2B

5:12:11 Results Session 3A

5:12:11 Results Session 3B

AIBA’s article link is here: Top Favorites Ochigava and Shields Advance to the Next Round in China

AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 5/12/12!

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AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 5/12/12! — Updated!

Next up is the wow of a huge day of competition! 

Maike Kluners, Germany (Red) v. Maiva Hamadouche, France (Blue), 5/11/12, Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images AsiaPac)

Bouts in the Olympic Flyweight, Lightweight and Middleweight divisions dominate today’s AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Quinhuangdao, China.

If you are a fan of the USA Boxing team, that means two fantastic fights!

In the 75kg division, American Olympic hopeful Claressa Shields, has already won her first preliminary bout by decision against India’s, Pooja Rani.  The final score was 27:10.  Shields dominated her opponent throughout the bout.  Her next fight will be against England’s Savannah Marshall on May 14th.

Seattle’s own Olympic trials champion, AIBA #7 ranked Queen Underwood just won her preliminary bout over Dayana Sanchez of Argentina. The unanimous decision was scored 24:13. Underwood dominated her fight over all four rounds as well!  She fights next in the Sweet 16 on May 14th.

As for Marlen Esparza, she received a BYE and will compete next in the sweet 16!

Click here for the Full Bout roster for 5/12/12:

5:12:12 Full Bout Roster

Click here for full results for 5/11/12:

5:11:12 Results Session 1A

5:11:12 Results Session 1B

AIBA’s article link is here:  India’s Chanu opens proceedings with a bang in Qinhuangdao

2012 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships set for May 9 – May 20!

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2012 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships set for May 9 – May 20!


Talk about exciting, the 2012 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships will be taking place in Qinhuangdao, China. The event will not only determine the world championship status in the competing weight classes but is the *only* qualifying event for this summer’s historic debut of Women’s Boxing at the London 2012 Olympics in the three Olympic weight divisions.

Marlen Esparza, Claressa Shields, Queen Underwood, 2012 USA Boxing Olympic Trials Champions, Credit: James Snook/US Presswire

Competitors from all of the world will be arriving in China to face off against each other in the tournament. USA Boxing’s full field of National Champions is set to leave on May 3rd. The team includes the three Olympic hopefuls, Marlen Esparza, Queen Underwood and Claressa Shields, representing the flyweight, lightweight and middleweight divisions respectively.

Under the rules of the Olympic qualifying event portion of the competition, only the top eight competitors in each of the Olympic weight divisions will be selected to represent their nations in the Olympics this summer.

This year’s tournament is the seventh AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. The first was held in in late 2001 in Scranton, PA, USA.

Notable luminaries from that first tournament included Sweden’s Frida Wallberg who won a gold medal in the 63.5kg weight class and France’s Myriam Lamare who won the silver. Both of these remarkable athletes have carved out fantastic professional careers. Mary Kom, who will be vying for an Olympic berth on India’s Team also competed in 2001, winning a silver medal in the 48KG division.

Barbados 2010, Lightweight Medal Winners

The last AIBA sponsored Women’s World Championship (the 6th) was held in Barbardos in September of 2010.

Among other memorable bouts, Ireland’s Katie Taylor (blue) defeated Cheng Dong (red) of China for the 60KG Lightweight Gold Medal.

To skirt or not to skirt: Choice is the answer!

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To skirt or not to skirt: choice is the answer!

Marzia Davide (Red) and Usha Nagisetty, 9/12/2009, Credit: Alberto Pizzoli, AFP/Getty Images

Score one for common sense and the best intentions of each member team of the International Amateur Boxing Association (“AIBA”):  rather than requiring female boxers to wear skirts compulsorily, the AIBA has made it optional, thanks no doubt to the over 58,000 signatures received from an online petition strongly opposed to the imposition of mandatory boxing skirts.

Dr. Wu, head of the AIBA spoke at the 5th World Conference on Women and Sport noting, “We have never asked the women to wear skirts, compulsorily … some women want to wear shorts and some want to wear skirts … So the decision we have made is that we shall make it optional because many boxers are undecided.”

Dr. Wu further noted that there had been concerns raised by certain of the national federations to the skirting question which led to the decision to make it optional based on the decision of each individual member group.

Given the vehement opposition of boxers such as Ireland’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor, the decision is a wise one.  The fact that the issue has come up at all at a time when the boxers should be focused on training in advance of the 2012 London summer games has been a distraction at best and a reminder of how far women’s boxing has yet to travel as an accepted sport.

For Americans who’ve just been treated to the first ever women’s boxing Olympic Trials this past week in Spokane, Washington, the news comes as a nice asterisk on a week of joyous celebration of the sport.  From the perspective of Girlboxing, we wish the issue had never surfaced, but given that the Polish national team has already adopted the boxing skirt as part of the uniform, we do welcome the decision as the wise course.

Women’s Boxing: One year to go till Olympic Glory!

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Women’s Boxing: One year to go till Olympic Glory!

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t like boxing.  My boxing hero was Mohammad Ali — and I have vivid memories of watching his fights on television, not to mention his running diatribes with Howard Cosell. And sure, that was all “back in the day” — but that was also history unfolding from Ali’s decision to embrace Islam on through refusing induction in the Army.  What resonated was Ali smiling for the camera and saying, “I’m so pretty.”  Those were powerful words for a boxer and a black man in America at that time — and frankly any time — upending notions of beauty, the ferosity of the ring, and the notion that there were limits on how high a human being could soar.

What I found was inspiration. I wanted to be him. Not so much as a boxer per se, but as a person that could take life and make it my own as an act of courage.

In thinking about the young women working their hearts out in the ring in preparation for next summer’s Olympics, I think of Ali. As a young 18 year old, he won Gold as a light heavyweight in the Rome Olympics and by the age of 28 had became an iconic figure in American history.  “The Greatest” changed the world.

The future Olympians who ply the boards through countless hours of hard work in the gym show feats of courage every time they step into the ring — and while they may not be as earth shattering as Ali, those acts of hard work are no less important to the scheme of things, not to mention that we don’t yet know just where any of these women will end up in the years to come.

Given that we’ve hit the one year mark — the main stream press has started to focus in on these women and their ambition, and as a salute to our future Olympic heros, here’s a smattering from around the web.

Queen Underwood (USA) – USA Today has a piece out entitled Queen Underwood chases glory in the boxing ring that talks about Queen’s dreams of winning Olympic gold.

Mary Kom (India) – Called “Magnificent Mary”, Kom is a five-time gold medal winner who is currently training with the Indian men’s team in pursuit of Olympic gold as noted in the Times of India article, Mary Kom trains with men’s team’s foreign coach.

Katie Taylor (Ireland) – Talk about courage in the ring, Katie Taylor is a fearless competitor having just won her 38th victory in a row with her gold medal victory in the European Union championships.  She is also an iconic figure of brilliance in action in her native Ireland as the Irish Times piece ‘Perfect fight’ ends with European Title attests.

There are countless other Olympic hopefuls with countless other dreams of rising to the podium — and what we can do is support those dreams with our unwavering passion for the sport we love.

Odd Bins: Short takes on Women’s Boxing from around the globe.

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Odd Bins: Short takes on Women’s Boxing from around the globe.

Sparta Gym, Photo: Fernando Lara

The talk of El Centro, California are the two girls in the “Selected 7” — representing the Sparta Boxing Gym who will go on to the Ringside World Championships this coming August in Kansas City, MO!

Julie “Bazooka” Muñoz, 13, and Danika “Babyface” Lara, 13, are two of the seven fighters who began started training in earnest this week for the championships.  Click here for the full story.

Jessica Diaz, Mission Boxing Club, Photo: Gabe Hernandez

The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a feature about women’s boxing at the Mission Boxing Club in Mission, Texas. The following quote from Jessica Diaz is typical of women training to box the world over, “You just have to push yourself, you have to be dedicated” Diaz said. “I started training hard. I would come in twice a day and when I wouldn’t come in, I would run. I’d eat right and only drink water.”  Diaz will fight her first bout  nn Saturday, July 30,  at “Beto’s Boxing Club Show: Rumble In The Jungle” in Mercedes, TX.  Click here for the full story.

Irish Boxing — and in particular Irish Women’s Boxing received a huge boost with a 2.3 million dollar infusion of cash issued by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association to improve facilities at boxing clubs across Ireland. The funds are being allocated to provide women with such things as changing rooms of their own!  The intent is to encourage more women to take up the sport — and honors Ireland’s great amateur champion, Katie Taylor acknowledged as a serious Gold Medal contender in the lightweight division in next year’s Women’s Boxing debut at the 2012 Olympics.

The 2011 National Championship’s have begun — in Lao Cai provence, Viet Nam that is.  There will be not less than 86 women boxers representing 20 teams from across the country participating in the tournament across five weight categories. The winners of this year’s tournament will be invited to join the National Team and participate in upcoming regional events to include the 26th annual SEA Games scheduled for this coming November in Indonesia.  The top seed for the championships is Luu Thi Duyen who was a silver medalist in April’s World Youth Boxing Championships in Turkey and a gold medal winner at this month’s President’s Cup tournament in Indonesia.

 

 

 

 

Women’s boxing, women’s sports.

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Women’s boxing, women’s sports.

I know it was a Sunday evening in mid-summer, but something interesting happened last night: both ABC and CBS led their evening news reports with women’s soccer.  Japan had just won as exciting a World Cup final as can be remembered against the US team — only it wasn’t the men’s soccer final, it was the women’s. Eschewing the normal jingoist flag waving, credit was given where it was due to the tremendous, tenacious play of both teams and to Japan for having edged out the US team 3-1 in penalty kicks after having been tied at 2-2 in regulation play.

As a strong supporter of the sport of women’s boxing, so often marginalized, side-swiped and forgotten, cheering from the side-lines for the extraordinary athletes plying their considerable skills for 90 plus minutes of non-stop play on the soccer pitch was inspirational.  After all, these young women came to play. Much as women who glove up for battle in the ring whether it’s in small club amateur fights, National championships or professional bouts in local venues or in places as storied as Madison Square Garden.

My hope is that women’s sports do indeed have a place that can translate into support and appreciation for the women in boxing who work and train against all odds to ply their passion. And perhaps one day, a year or so from now, when the first female boxer ascends the Olympic podium to collect her well-earned gold medal, television stations around the world will lead with her victory!

Would … that it will be true.

For some further inspiration, here’s Katie Taylor’s 2010 World Championship win. (Action starts about 2:00 in.)

Women’s Amateur Boxing Updates!

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Women’s Amateur Boxing Updates!

>>>AIBA’s Women’s and Youth Junior World Championships are set to begin in Ankara, Turkey on April 24, 2011 – May 1, 2011!

As noted by AIBA, “A total of 264 young women boxers from 45 different countries are set to compete.”  Junior boxers as young as 14 years old will participate in a total of thirteen different weight classes under official AIBA rules. Interestingly, the United States will not be fielding a team in either division.  Participating countries will include Russian, host country Turkey, Ukraine, India, Poland, Sweden and Ireland (with women’s boxing champion Katie Taylor leading the team), among other participating nations.

For further information click here.

>>>Team USA Dual Showdown

Congratulations to Team USA Women’s Boxing for their hard-fought victories and near misses in the two dual showdown events with a superb Mexican team on April 13th & April 15th in Harvey, Illinois.

4/13/11 – Friday’s USA vs. Mexico Dual Results
112 lbs/female: Marlen Esparza, Houston, Texas/USA, dec. Mariana Caballero, MEX, 29-9
132 lbs/female: Queen Underwood, Seattle, Wash./USA, dec. Reyna Cotija, MEX, 15-13

4/15/11 – Sunday’s USA vs. Mexico Dual Results
112 lbs/female: Marlen Esparza, Houston, Texas/USA dec. Silvia Torres, MEX, 16-12

132 lbs/female: Erika Cruz, MEX, dec. Queen Underwood, Seattle, Wash./USA, 21-13

165 lbs/female: Tiffanie Hearn, Louisville, Ky./USA dec. Alma Ibarra, MEX, 16-7

For further information click here.

Women’s Boxing Everywhere!

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Women’s boxing everywhere!

Lately, when you type in “women’s boxing” on a google news search you’ll find tons of stories from all over the place: Upcoming title fights, Olympic hopefuls in Chicago, Manila and Northern India, and terrific stories about women boxers going on to new heights in the field.

Here’s a smattering from today beginning with my favorite from the Independent in Dublin, Ireland!

– The Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, Ireland this coming March 17th will be none other than Katie Taylor, Ireland’s first female boxing champion. Taylor, 24, is a boxer and soccer player who began fighting at the age of 15. Her latest prize was winning gold at the 2010 World Amateur championships in Barbados last year.  The full article is here.

– This weekend, young women from around Australia with Olympic dreams in their hearts will begin the first rung of fulfilling those ambitions by competing this weekend Melbourne in the Australian championships. For a sweet article on two young hopefuls from Manning River, Australia, courtesy of the Manning River Times click here.  A second article about women from Laurieton can be found here courtesy of the Camden Haven Courier.

– Not to be out done, the Chicago Tribune has a feature piece about boxer Kristin Gearhart who will be defending her Chicago Golden Gloves title in the junior welterweight division.  The three-time golden gloves champion is hoping to go on to the Nationals and beyond that has an Olympic dream of her own. The story by Chicago Tribune reporter By Jim Jaworski can be found here.

There is tons more to report, including a Girlboxing shout out to New York’s own Million Dollar Baby, Maureen Shea on landing a fabulous new gig as the host of Mexico’s women’s boxing reality TV show, “Todos Contra Mexico.”  Check out this piece in Eastside Boxing.