Stockport golden boy, Michael Maughan is Britain\u2019s newest boxing champion after winning a Youth Olympic Games title in Africa.<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old punching prince defeated Kazakhstan rival and world number one Bibarys Ashirbay to land the Under 70kg gold medal in Dakar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so happy,\u201d said Maughan, a member of the Stockport and Brinnington Boxing Club after his split decision success in the Senegalese capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means so much to me to win the gold,\u201d added the 2025 European Under 17 champion who started the sport, aged five with his brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to work so hard and credit to my opponent. But there was only going to be one winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to thank my mum, dad and family back home, friends, my coach Eric and all the people in Stockport and Brinnington for supporting me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maughan won his first three bouts on unanimous verdicts, defeating opponents from Ecuador, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates \u2013 all 5-0.<\/p>\n
Ashirbay was a far tougher proposition but the new champion earned a split decision victory, impressing two of the three judges to become champion.<\/p>\n
Coach Mick Maguire said: \u201cMichael has come through some turbulent times across the last six months with some personal issues and the recent passing of his grandfather.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he has applied himself through it all and showed the resilience and focus of an Olympic champion which is what he now is.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis dedication and commitment across the past 18 months has seen him rise through the England development team in 2025 to become European and now Olympic champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thanks and congratulations go to his family and to his club coach, Eric Drayson who has pulled Michael through the difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maughan\u2019s stunning success justified his selection as one of Team GB\u2019s first athletes named for the Games.<\/p>\n
And it could be the springboard to an even bigger sporting career for the four-time National champion.<\/p>\n
Double Olympic taekwondo champion, Jade Jones, now a promising pro boxer, struck Youth Olympic gold at the inaugural Games in 2010.<\/p>\n
Four years ago in Buenos Aires, Caroline Dubois, now WBO and WBC world boxing champion, stood on top of the podium.<\/p>\n
The Youth Olympics is showcasing the talents of around 2,700 of the world\u2019s best young athletes (aged between 14-18). It is the first time any official Olympic event has been held on the African continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stockport golden boy, Michael Maughan is Britain\u2019s newest boxing champion after winning a Youth Olympic Games title in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":968965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-968964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}