Team England name Chapple as team leader for boxing at Birmingham 2022

England Boxing board member Darren Chapple has today been announced as Team England’s team leader for boxing at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The chance to lead at a second, home games follows an immensely successful stint at the helm for Gold Coast 2018, where his squad (pictured below) took a six gold, one silver and two bronze medals – a record for England in boxing.

It beat the previous record haul set in Melbourne 2006 and was achieved with a 75% medal return from a team of 12 male and female athletes.

Chapple is relishing the chance to build on that performance on home territory and said: “As was the case with the Gold Coast, I am truly honoured to be given this role and I will be doing my utmost to make sure we are successfully again.

“To come off the back of a record boxing haul in Australia for a home games is a huge challenge, but it is one I am looking forward to and I’m sure the team that is eventually chosen will do too.

“Not many people get to participate in a multi-sport home games, so it is an exciting opportunity and I am particularly looking forward to it being held in Birmingham because it is a city that champions diversity, equality and multi-culturalism and promises to be something special.”

In his role at England Boxing, Chapple has specific responsibility for Performance and Talent, as well as the organisation’s risk management.

He brings extensive experience as a Team Manager and has overseen the delivery of performance pathways, also chairing the England Boxing Team Managers’ Panel, as well as being a member of the GB Talent Commission.

Recently retired from 34 years’ service in the Royal Air Force, he has served boxing for over 40 years as a competitor, coach and official.

Chapple added: “As a team leader I will be working directly with the Chef de Mission (Mark England) to ensure that the overall Team England ethos and values are embedded with the boxing squad.

“I’ll also be working to incorporate the boxers into the rest of Team England, which covers some 19 sports, and helping that overall team fit into a multi-sports games where there are 71 other competing nations.”

Made up of athletes from a huge range of communities across the country, Team England is the only major English sporting team where disabled and non-disabled athletes compete as one team.

Since the 1930 Commonwealth Games, Team England has been represented by over 4,500 different athletes, with over 2,000 medals being brought home.

In April 2018, the country flew its largest ever team out to the Gold Coast in Australia for the most recent Commonwealth Games.

390 athletes from the length and breadth of the country donned the red and white of Team England, bringing home 136 medals from across 18 different sports.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games will be held from 28 July to 8 August – 20 years after the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games and 10 years after London 2012.

The Games will bring together 6,500 athletes and officials in one of the youngest cities in Europe, cheered on by an inclusive, welcoming and sport-loving city region that is already home to 187 nationalities from around the Commonwealth and the rest of the world.

With 19 sports on the programme, Birmingham 2022 will see the biggest para sports programme in Commonwealth Games history with the inclusion of wheelchair basketball as the first para team sport contested at the Games.

The addition of women’s T20 cricket to the Games, also means that for the first time there is expected to be more medals available for women (135) than there are for men (133).