Inspire Camp Successfully Delivered

Sunday 20^th August saw England Boxing host its first ever Inspire Summer Camp initiative for female school and junior boxers, and was held at the home of GB Boxing, EIS in Sheffield.

This initiative was for girls who have never been on any level of the talent/performance pathway or have not been selected by their regions to attend the Women’s Aspire Programme since the programme started.

76 school & junior boxers from all over the country attended the day, which was designed and delivered by coaches from the Women’s Coach Development Programme with support from England Boxing Pathway coaches.

The day was based on the 5 pillars of boxing in line with the performance and development pathway and gave the girls a taster of what it’s like to train at the lions den, in a hope to inspire them to stay in the sport, train hard to reach their potential and hopefully be back one day as part of the pathway.

To top the day off we had two-time unified welterweight World Champion and holder of 4 World titles Natasha Jonas, who came to chat with the girls, share her experiences, with a Q&A session and had photos with all the girls.

Women & Girls officer Laura Sargeant said “The girls have had an absolutely fantastic day! Top class training sessions from amazing coaches and being able to train in the place where Olympians train, is such an amazing opportunity for them. I originally allocated 50 places for the camp but had such a huge response, I had to extend it! This was a great way for them to raise their aspirations, and to inspire them to dream big and stay in the sport. It’s also great development for the coaches.”

And if that wasn’t enough Natasha dropped in to further Inspire them. “I honestly can’t thank Natasha and Boxxer enough for getting behind this initiative and taking the time to come and speak to the girls. Their faces when she walked through the door made my day, they were so excited, and Natasha was brilliant with them. She gave them a talk on everything from training to social media awareness, the girls then had the chance to ask any questions and finished with a photo shoot with all of her belts. For these young boxers it was definitely a dream come true!”

“I would also like to express my thanks to all the coaches involved in the day, from the planning to the delivery and helping make theses girls dreams become a reality.”