<\/p>\n
\nBoxing gloves
\nPhoto: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz\n<\/p>\n
Boxing New Zealand national coach Billy Meehan has high hopes for his athletes at the world championships despite the financial constraints they faced to get there.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has a team of seven competing at the inaugural World Boxing Championships in Liverpool starting this week.<\/p>\n
World Boxing took over the running of the sport this year after the International Olympic Committee stripped the IBA of its status because of issues with its governance and finances.<\/p>\n
There are 540 boxers from 66 countries taking part, including 17 medallists from the Paris 2024 Olympics.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand team members have had to fundraise $10,000 each to get to the world champs.<\/p>\n
“It’s a tough road, when you’re trying to represent your country, trying to train like professional athletes but not getting paid and having to raise money and hold down a full-time job at the same time.”<\/p>\n
A pre-tournament camp in Glasgow means that they will be away from families and work for almost five weeks by the time they return home.<\/p>\n
Meehan said they were appreciative of the support they get from Sport New Zealand, but “it’s never enough”.<\/p>\n
Boxing NZ has had its annual funding from High Performance Sport NZ cut from $165,000 to $100,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nNew Zealand boxer Celine Lee-Lo
\nPhoto: supplied \/ Instagram\n<\/p>\n
Despite that Meehan has high hopes for his boxers.<\/p>\n
“We’re New Zealanders, we always shoot for the top and always punch above our weight<\/p>\n
“Our resources are next to none compared to other countries, but we believe in our athletes and if we can get a couple of top eight finishes then we’ll be happy.”<\/p>\n
Boxing was one of 10 sports that was included in the reduced 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games programme.<\/p>\n
“All this is about getting our boxers top international experience and making progress towards Commonwealth Games and Olympics,” Meehan said.<\/p>\n
New Zealand should have good representation in the boxing in Glasgow next year and some contenders should emerge from the national championships in Porirua later in September.<\/p>\n
A trial will then be held later in the year before potential Commonwealth Games representatives will be required to attend a couple of international events.<\/p>\n
More fundraising will probably be needed from those hoping to wear the silver fern.<\/p>\n
New Zealand boxers at the World Boxing Championships, Liverpool, 4-14 September:<\/p>\n
Emma Nesbitt, Auckland, 48kg<\/p>\n
Ali Lai-Carlisle, Wellington, 57kg<\/p>\n
Jordan Wilson, Auckland, 65kg<\/p>\n
Morgan Henderson, Otago, 70kg<\/p>\n
Celine Lee-Lo, Auckland, 80+kg<\/p>\n
Wesley Cameron, Bay of Plenty, 70kg<\/p>\n
Taj Kagho, Auckland, 80kg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing gloves Photo: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz Boxing New Zealand national coach Billy Meehan has high hopes for his athletes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,1590,63,802,1589,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,85],"class_list":["post-117147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}