Irish Boxers Preparing for World Championships in Kansas City
The 9th Annual Ringside World Championships take place on Aug 4 - Aug 8, 2009 at the KCI Expo Center. The event is the largest international amateur boxing championship in the world, and the Anglo Celt has a feature on the highly successful Cavan Boxing Club’s preparation for the event.
For those of you interested in Irish geography, Cavan is the main town in the county of the same name, a county in Ulster - one of the 3 Ulster counties in the Republic (along with Monaghan and Donegal), the other 6 being in Northern Ireland.
The Cavan club were the first club from Ireland to compete in the Ringside World Championships and they’ve also brought back two world titles through David Nevin and Caroline Reilly.
There are 10 members in the Cavan team going to Kansas City:
The current squad is a mixture of experienced campainers and emerging prospects and with Gemma Lee, Ceire Smith, Joe and Hugh Nevin all Irish champions and Paddy Nevin and Adam Cullen only losing out in Irish Cadet finals on countbacks, they will certainly not be easily beaten in the open class divisions.
Current Ulster novice champions Pat McCann, Micheal Hatton, Donal Cadden and Charlie Glackin make up the rest of the team and it is expected that the experience gained in the US will benefit them greatly as their ring careers progress over the coming season.
Teams from the Boxing clubs of Cootehill, also in County Cavan, and Smithborough, in Monaghan, are also going on the KC trip.
Something small I missed about Ireland when living in Kansas City was ordinary people talking about boxing. I’m not referring to your mother threatening to box the ears off ya, although I did miss that too, but to people beyond fans of the sport discussing it. In KC for the most part the only references to boxing I heard were historical ones to Louis, Dempsey, Ali, and Frasier. I never heard who was fighting who and for what.
Obviously somebody’s talking about it, since the US dominates the sport, but I didn’t find interest in it permeating through all of society. The only times I watched boxing matches in KC were when invited to by Irish, or English, people.
Tickets
General admission: $5.00 per session or $20.00 for all-tournament pass
(13 years and younger free)
Sessions
Sessions will be daily 11:00 am and 6:00 pm.
Championships will begin on Saturday, August 8th at 11:00 am
See Also:
• Ireland 2008 Olympic Medal Count
• Painting: Boxing ‘Love
• Jack Doyle: Video of the Gorgeous Gael
• Irish Boxer Fights in Wichita, Kansas
• Irish Arm in America
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