Boxing Amateur

As I look back through the decades of amateur boxing history of the BC Golden Gloves from 1939 to 2009, there have been many BC Golden Boys such as two time Golden Boy Dick Findlay and three time BC Junior Golden Boy Cliff Ballendine.  But, neither of them and many more are in any boxing or sports hall of fame.

As I look back through the decades of amateur boxing history of the BC Diamond Belt tournaments in the Fifties and  Sixties in Vancouver  or the revival of the tournament at Victoria in 1980, there have been many Diamond Boys such as Vancouver Firefighters Boxing Club’s  Dave Wylie in 1967 and Victoria’s Gary Robinson in 1980.  But, neither of them and many more are in any boxing or sports hall of fame.

As I look back through the decades of amateur boxing history of the British Columbia amateur boxing clubs, past and present, there are and have been many clubs of distinction that have contributed to the success of Amateur Boxing in British Columbia in a variety of ways.  There was the London Boxing Club of Victoria that hosted a Vancouver Island Amateur Boxing Championship in 1964, hosted club cards that featured the 1964 Olympic Games boxer Fred Desrosiers, and hosted a 1976 BC Selects vs NW England junior boxing tournament that included 1984 Olympic bronze medal winner Dale Walters.  There is the Nanaimo Boxing Club that revived boxing in Nanaimo in 1971 by Dan Wright and Brian Zelley, had the first Canadian senior boxing champion Jack Snaith (1973) since 1967 when Bill Taylor of the London Boxing Club was champion.   There was the  North West Eagles Boxing Club that  hosted many of the BC Bronze Gloves tournaments in the Sixties for junior novice boxers, produced various Canadian champions such as Chris Ius and Les Hamilton under the direction of head coach Elio Ius and coaches Mel Ius and Terry Cooke, and allowed there gym to be used by Muhammed Ali and George Chuvalo, Manuel Gonzalez and Clyde Gray in 1972 before a major pro boxing show.  There have been many other boxing clubs scattered throughout British Columbia but they are not included in any boxing or sports hall of fame.

Throughout the decades there have been many excellent officials and regional amateur boxing commissioners such as Vancouver Island’s Bert Wilkinson (Sixties), Howard Curling (Seventies) and Rick Brought (Eighties) but their  names are not mentioned or listed on any boxing or sports hall of fame.

Over the years, some folks have been inducted into a  Provincial Sports Hall of Fame such as Harold Mann and Bert Lowes (BC) or Eddie Haddad (Manitoba), but there are many deserving individuals, teams and clubs that are worthy of such recognition such as the British Columbia senior boxing team of 1970, but they appear to be forgotten memories of a few.

The British Columbia Amateur Boxing Association (Boxing BC) has the provincial responsibility to ensure the proper organization, education and growth in the sport.  To understand true education should not be to limit the learning to coaches and officials clinics but to educate the members and general public of the history of the sport of amateur boxing in British Columbia.   The establishment of a BC AMATEUR BOXING HALL OF FAME would provide an important public relations opportunity and recognize some of the many past boxers, coaches, officials, and other builders, and members of the sports news media.

Posted in Amateur Boxer

Should amateur boxers be concerned about long term brain injury? According to an article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) the association between amateur boxing and chronic traumatic brain injury is not significant; researchers say it is currently not possible to come to a decisive conclusion.

The authors explain that in the case of professional boxing the risk of long term brain injury is much clearer. However, this does not mean that the safety of amateur boxing should not continue to be questioned.

If the British Medical Association had its way, both professional and amateur boxing would be banned. However, no recent studies have been carried out to evaluate the dangers in amateur boxing. Therefore, Dr Mike Loosemore, Lead Sports Physician, Olympic Medical Institute, Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, UK, and a team of sports doctors and clinical academics looked at the evidence to decide whether the amateur sport might lead to chronic traumatic brain injury.

36 observational studies were identified – all of them focusing on amateur boxing and its potential link to chronic traumatic brain injury. In order to minimize bias, the researchers took into account study design and quality. Their definition of chronic traumatic brain injury included any abnormality in neurological examination, psychometric testing, brain imaging, or electroencephalography.

15 of all the studies came to the conclusion that abnormalities took place. However, the researchers commented that the quality of proof was generally poor.

The studies deemed to be of the best quality – the ones that included psychometric tests – concluded that there were no long-term effects of boxing on the function of the brain. Of 17 better quality studies, just four identified indications of chronic traumatic brain injury in a small proportion of boxers in their studies.

Six of the studies used magnetic resonance imaging. Just one of them found an abnormality – one boxer had a cyst – which could have been congenital. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is normally considered as the best way of determining subtle damage and degenerative change in the brain.

Studies with positive findings were, in general, of bad design and quality.

The authors explain that amateur boxing is becoming more popular. They stress that their aim in this review is neither to support nor oppose the sport. They conclude that the evidence as such is not strong enough to link amateur boxing with chronic traumatic brain injury.

Accompanying Editorial:
Paul McCrory, a neurologist and sports doctor, University of Melbourne, believes that as modern amateur boxers have shorter careers than their peers years ago, and reduced exposure to repetitive head trauma, the chances of this condition developing are fairly slim.

“Amateur boxing and risk of chronic traumatic brain injury: a systematic review of observational studies”
BMJ Online First
“Editorial: Boxing and the risk of chronic brain injury”
BMJ Online First

Posted in Amateur Boxer

• Do you like being a tough guy?
• And do you go to a boxing club to show after that how hard you hit when you’re pissed off?
• Well, you’d better find out that you will become like Muhammad Ali, even if you do not step on a professional arena.

A new Swedish research shows that blows to the head in amateur boxing provoke severe brain damage. “Despite the high prevalence of brain damage as a result of professional boxing, until now there has been little information on the possible risks for brain injury in amateur
boxing,” said study author Dr. Max Hietala, with Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Goteborg.

The researchers employed lumbar puncture to see if there were higher amounts of biochemical markers pointing to brain injury in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 14 amateur boxers. The fighters were checked after a fight and a second time three months after a pause without boxing. 10 healthy men that did not practice box were used for control.

The research team detected in the CSF high amounts of neuronal and glial markers showing brain damage after the fight. Neurofilament light (NFL), a marker for neuronal damage, was four fold higher in boxers in the first 10 days following the fight compared to control subjects.

These high marker amounts turned back to normal only after the three months pause. These abnormal levels following a boxing match were much higher among those amateur fighters who had received over 15 high impact hits to the head.

This category was found to present 7-8 times more NFL-levels post fight than their own levels after the three-months pause. “Repeated hits to the head are potentially damaging to the central nervous system, and our results suggest CSF-analysis could be used for medical counseling of athletes after boxing or head injury,” said Hietala.

When the same analyses were made on soccer players, who head the ball repeatedly from long and high goal kicks, there were no raised levels of brain trauma markers in cerebrospinal fluid. “This data shows headings in soccer is not associated with any neurochemical evidence of brain damage,” said Hietala.

Posted in Amateur Boxer