GB Boxing returned return from the Cologne Boxing Cup in Germany with nine medals, including three golds, for Charley Davison and Elise Glynn of England and Wales’s Taylor Bevan.
Joining them on the medal podium was Demie-Jade Resztan, Rosie Eccles, Garan Croft and Patrick Brown who all won silver. Light-welterweight, Joe Tyers, and light-middleweight, Harris Akbar, returned home with bronze.
Boxing for the first time since she secured qualification for her second Olympics at this summer’s European Games in Poland, Charley Davison, continued her good form as she comfortably won all three of her bouts in the bantamweight (54kg) division. She was also named the ‘Best Female Technical Boxer’ in the competition.
Another boxer to win an award was Taylor Bevan, who secured the title of ‘Best Male Fighting Performance’ on-route to winning the light-heavyweight (80kg) title, which culminated in a superb 3:2 split decision victory in a fiercely contested final over Cuba’s, Jorge Soto Napoles.
GB Boxing’s final gold went to Elise Glynn who confirmed her growing status as a force to be reckoned with in the featherweight division (57kg) with a unanimous victory over Denmark’s Melissa Mortensen in her final.
The three gold medals were the highlight of a fine week, which saw boxers from Great Britain, contest seven of the 13 finals in the men and women’s weight classes.
Of the other four boxers to make the final in their weight class, light-middleweight, Garan Croft, and heavyweight, Patrick Brown, can both count themselves unlucky to have found themselves on the wrong side of narrow 3:2 defeats against Germany’s Magomed Schachidov and Cuba’s Nelson Jesus Williams respectively. In the women’s semis, light-flyweight, Demie-Jade Resztan, and welterweight, Rosie Eccles, both lost to opponents from Germany.
GB Boxing’s Performance Director, Rob McCracken said: “The World Boxing Cup in Cologne has been an excellent tournament that has provided our boxers with valuable experience.
“The quality of the competition has been very high with some excellent nations participating and it has been a very good week for our team in which we have learnt a lot about the group and seen some outstanding individual performances from a number of boxers.
“This is exactly the kind of test our boxers needed at this stage in the Olympic cycle and has given us a lot of positives to work with as we head into 2024 and the remaining Olympic qualifiers.”
Six other members of the GB Boxing squad that competed in Cologne but did not win a medal included Kiaran MacDonald, Jack Dryden, Ramtin Musah, Sam Hickey, Gemma Richardson and Kerry Davis.
The ‘World Boxing Cup: Cologne 2023’ was delivered by the German Boxing Association in collaboration with World Boxing, the new international federation that has been established to ensure boxing remains at the heart of the Olympic Movement.
