Box Cup now Euro’s biggest

MONKSTOWN’S International Box Cup 2016 became Europe’s largest boxing tournament last weekend as the competition swelled this year to over 900 boxers from 11 different countries.
Large swathes of south Dublin and north Wicklow were buzzing with boxing teams from all over Europe who had arrived for the competition.
In addition to the 900 boxers, 500 coaches, 100 officials and 2,000 spectators of family and supporters packed into the Holy Child Community School Sports Hall in Sallynoggin for three days of boxing from 7am each morning to 11pm on Friday and Saturday and 7pm on Sunday night.
The tournament played out across four rings running simultaneously throughout the three days and was open to boys and girls aged from nine to 19-years-old.
It featured 125 clubs from Ireland and over 50 from England with visitors arriving, too, from Scotland, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Wales and Belgium.
The event saw Dun Laoghaire town centre packed out with visitors in their representative club tracksuits while local hotels, B&Bs and guesthouses were booked out well in advance with local businesses also benefiting from the influx.
The planning of the event has been ongoing since its previous event in July 2015 with a team of 45 volunteers working on its organisation.
To that end, the club set up two separate committees to help deal with the amount of entries. In its four-year existence, the competition has grown from 75 boxers in year one, to 300 in 2014 and 500 in 2015.
Speaking about the competition, the club’s Paul Kinsella said: “In particular, the committee would sincerely like to thank their sponsors Globalmedics.com, DLRCC [Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council], the IABA [Irish Athletic Boxing Association] and Holy Child Community School Sallynoggin.
“There is no doubt there will be an upsurge in boys and girls wanting to join the club, with many parents asking how can their kids join, and where the local clubs are situated.”
On the results front, Monkstown BC continued their recent good form with winning the overall Best Club with nine champions.
Included in that number was 17-year-old 62kg Kenneth Doyle who, in the past two years was a beaten finalist; this year, he went one step better and won the class, beating three opponents in three days. He took home the most technical boxer crown for his weekend’s work.
The best boxer award went to Aaron Vaughan from Towerhill BC, Liverpool while Darlington’s Joe Tyres won the best junior boxer.
The joint second place in the club of the competition went to a Munster High Performance Selection and Darlington BC, England who both had eight champions from the event.