Women’s Winter Box Cup 2022: FLAG squad raring to go – and mount team challenge

The Midlands-based Fight Like A Girl (FLAG) squad is looking forward to this weekend’s England Boxing Women’s Winter Box Cup 2022 in Leigh this weekend (3rd and 4th December), which makes a welcome return after a Covid-19 enforced lay-off.

Of the major national competitions, only the England Boxing National Youth Championships took place in 2020 before the Pandemic took hold.

Events did return in 2021, but because various national championships postponed from earlier in the year were moved to the back end of it, there was no slot available for the all-women-and-girls competition to be staged.

However, with the domestic amateur boxing calendar back to something like normal, the Box Cup is back in now back its traditional early December slot… and the FLAG contingent, all 21 of them, are determined to enjoy the occasion.

Although the boxers are affiliated to their own clubs, they meet as a squad once a month as Birmingham’s Aston ABC – a session that has now been running for seven years and attracts female boxers from all over the Midlands and beyond for training and sparring opportunities.

Former International Boxer Miriam Zouhou, who came through the ranks at Startford-Upon-Avon ABC and boxed in the inaugural WWBC in 2018, is the Lead Coach of the FLAG Squad and is delighted to be sending  such a strong team to the North West.

“The team has been working very hard over the past three months in preparing for this Box Cup and everyone is relishing the opportunity to showcase their boxing at such a prestigious tournament,” she said.

“I would like to pay tribute to the clubs, the boxers, and their coaches for the commitment and effort they have all shown in bringing the FLAG team together for this event.

“We have a very talented team of boxers and will be hoping to show how far female boxing in the Midlands, and indeed the country, has come over the past few years.”

With the biggest number of boxers entered, the FLAG squad will have high hopes of winning the team competition, which will go to the team who wins the most gold medals, with silver and bronze medals the deciding factor if there is a tie at the top of the podium.

But there will be other teams who will be strongly vying for that honour too, with sizeable contingents from the likes of the Army Boxing Team, Dublin City University, Left Hook, St Ives Boxing Academy and the regional squads of Yorkshire and Merseyside and Cheshire, among others.

Co-founder of the FLAG squad, and Aston ABC coach John Homer, believes Zouhou is the ideal coach to lead the Midlands team into action.

He said: “Miriam boxed for England, is a former Three Nations Champion and secured a silver medal in the first edition of this tournament in 2018.

“As part of the FLAG team, she is a shining example of how a strong squad infrastructure can develop both boxers and coaches for the future.”

Find out more

For more information on the Women’s Winter Box Cup 2022, click here.

You can follow the action on England Boxing’s Instagram account, Facebook account and TikTok account, while lives results and videos will be posted on the England Boxing Twitter account.

All coverage across social media will use the hashtag #EBWWBC22