‘No time for sleeping’: Mini Flyweight Elizabeth Ndlovu sets sights on world titles<\/a><\/p>\n“When they come from a stable background, it takes the pressure off,” McAusland explained. “It takes the pressure off: ‘I have to fight every month because if I don’t, my family don’t eat.’ It’s a huge disadvantage for a boxer who is boxing just to be able to earn money. Sometimes it’s not even their passion, but it’s the only opportunity they’ve got.”<\/p>\n
McAusland approaches management with the protective dedication of a parent, guiding her fighters toward long-term independence.<\/p>\n
She insists on life goals outside the ring, helping fighters gain driver’s licenses, save earnings, complete computer courses, and find flexible jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For star athletes like South African champion Simangele “Smash” Hadebe, McAusland made homeownership and career planning mandatory milestones.<\/p>\n
“I manage them in the ring and out of the ring, and I manage them like my own child,” McAusland said. “Boxing is a short career… help them do a computer course, give them some sort of skills that they are able to do something else outside of boxing.”<\/p>\n
Beyond managing individual careers, McAusland is a vocal advocate for gender equality in South African sports.<\/p>\n
She actively campaigns for equal pay, more female promoters and mandatory female bouts on every fight card, rather than limiting women’s matches to Women’s Month in August.<\/p>\n
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South African boxing manager Colleen McAusland. Picture: Sphamandla Dlamini\/EWN<\/p>\n
“I think Boxing South Africa needs to say that every tournament has at least one female bout on it,” she noted, adding that corporate sponsors are missing a massive opportunity by overlooking female fighters.<\/p>\n
“Our girls work harder than the boys because they’ve got to constantly prove themselves. They show up, and they don’t get the opportunity. It’s a lost opportunity for companies.”<\/p>\n
Developing top-tier talent like Hadebe or Bernice Ferreira takes time, especially when female fighters struggle to get frequent fights locally.<\/p>\n
Building a female contender to an international ranking takes two years of steady development- a journey made harder when regional opportunities remain scarce.<\/p>\n
McAusland’s dedication to empowering athletes earned her the Telkom Woman of the Year award at the GSport Awards.<\/p>\n
For McAusland, the recognition validated a lifetime spent breaking barriers and fighting for structural reform.<\/p>\n
“That award for me wasn’t only just for me; it was for every woman in sport to say that we can do it,” McAusland shared.<\/p>\n
“For every woman that breaks barriers, for every woman that stands up and speaks out for the inequalities that we face as women in sport.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the high-stakes, male-dominated world of South African combat sports, boxing manager Colleen McAusland is rewriting the rules…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,115924,115925,115928,115927,115926,1347,44,3357,115931,115930,115929,85],"class_list":["post-875912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-ewn","tag-ewn-news","tag-ewn-south-africa","tag-eye-witness-news","tag-eyewitness-news","tag-latest-news","tag-news","tag-news-today","tag-prime-media-plus","tag-primedia-plus","tag-primedia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875912","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=875912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}