Two Nanaimo boxers punched their way through provincials, with one earning a B.C. title and the other earning a berth at nationals.
Iaroslav Gogolinskii and Tristan Kuller of Force Boxing and Fitness competed at Boxing B.C.'s junior and youth championships this past Friday through Sunday, April 18-20, at Monarc Athletics in Vancouver. Gogolinskii, 16, won two out of his three bouts to earn silver at provincials and qualify for nationals, while Kuller, 14, won his B.C. title bout but is too young to advance to nationals this year.
Force Boxing assistant coach Glenn Forde said Gogolinskii's conditioning was "100 per cent" for provincials and said there wasn't much more he could have done, as his title bout went to a split judges' decision.
"We were just on the wrong side of the split. It's one of those things that happen," Forde said.
As for Kuller, he combined creativity with coachability and boxed beyond what coaches could have expected from a fighter with so few bouts under his belt.
"He showed a lot of variety, he showed a lot of different tools," said Forde. "A lot of fighters are one-dimensional with their one tool, but he's angling and level changing and stuff like that."
Kuller said winning a B.C. title felt like achieving a big goal that he had.
For Gogolinskii, he said he will work on correcting mistakes and try to keep getting better between now and late May, when he goes to Boxing Canada nationals in Quebec City.
"That's the point where I'm going to prove that I'm actually going to be the best in Canada and that's going to be really exciting for me," he said.
Forde said leading up to nationals, coaches will try to keep Gogolinskii training the same way he's been doing, with hard work inside the gym, and leaving it to the fighter to work on his conditioning outside the gym, too.
"If you only do as much as the next guy beside you, you're just going to be that good. You have to go that extra mile," the assistant coach said. "You've got to do that little bit more if you want to achieve anything."
