The Papua New Guinea Boxing Union (PNGBU) in its bid to maintain its top billing in the Pacific following the 2015 Pacific Games is building its capacity in administration and developing programs that can continue the trend.
Despite being run by voluntary administrators who rely very heavily on limited funding, the PNGBU under president, John Avira dominated the 2015 Pacific Games winning eight of the 13 gold medals on offer with all its boxers except one finishing as medallists.
The remaining four won either won silver or bronze.
Avira who retained his position at the Annual General Meeting in Kavieng last year now has a new executive who have vowed to not only build on that performance but develop programs that will take the sport to greater heights on the world stage.
General-Secretary Dr Gideon Kendino who was voted in at Kavieng said Avira did a wonderful job under very trying conditions and we are determined to help him lift the sport to a whole new level.
“That (Pacific Games) performance shows that Papua New Guinea has the natural talent in boxing but we need to complement that by putting in place systems that will attract more corporate sponsorship to develop the young men and women that are passionate about the sport,” said Kendino.
He said an elite squad of boxers, some of whom were involved in the Olympic program, need the next crop of boxers to maintain the quality in depth.
The select squad named following the recent trials in Port Moresby is preparing for an international friendly against Fiji later this month on October 29 in Suva.
“The cancellation of the PNG Games threw us off balance a bit as it was an event we targeted to identify boxers to draft them into our development squad so we had to re-strategize.
“There are many other boxers who have potential that Thadius Katua displayed on the world stage so we are now organising ourselves administratively with the hope that corporates (organisations) who want to support a sport that has a huge potential to produce some exciting results can join us in our quest for exciting times ahead,” said Kendino.
Next year in December, PNG boxing wants to again dominate the sport at the Mini Pacific Games in Vanuatu with the best from that group advancing to the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018.
With Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA) sanctioned world championships clustered in between, PNG Boxing has its sights on maintaining its dominance at the 2019 Pacific Games in Tonga.
“We will continue to work very closely with the country’s two leading sports authorities, the PNG Olympic Committee and the PNG Sports Foundation as both have specific functions that we have to observe so that we can achieve exciting outcomes by working together as partners,” said Kendino.