With 14 days to go for the Commonwealth Games, national teams are in their final preparations, submitting the names of their boxers selected to represent their countries at the prestigious multi-sports event.
Boxers from the Commonwealth Games’ powerhouse countries, including host nation England (which leads the all-time Commonwealth Games boxing medals table with 128 medals), Australia, India and South Africa, will soon compete against athletes from smaller Commonwealth nations, like Fiji, Lesotho and Cyprus.
The boxing contests will take place over nine days, from July 29, the day after the Games’ opening ceremony, to 7 August, the day before the closing ceremony, with a rest day on August 5. The quarter finals are scheduled over two days, August 3-4, with the semis on August 6, and the finals and medal ceremonies on August 7.
The men’s competition features 10 weight categories: flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, light welterweight, welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, light heavyweight, heavyweight and super heavyweight.
The women will compete in six weight divisions: minimumweight, light flyweight, featherweight, lightweight, light middleweight and middleweight.
None of England’s boxers – eight men and six women – has previously competed at a Commonwealth Games. But with the team including the Budapest 2018 AIBA Women’s Youth World Boxing champion in the lightweight (60kg) division, Gemma Richardson, and the recent EUBC European Men’s Elite Boxing Champion in light middleweight (71kg), Mohammed Harris Akbar, the team will be seeking to top the medals table once again.
Strong competition will come from Team India, which finished second to England in the boxing medals table at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, with three gold, three silver and three bronze medals.
Among India’s four female boxers at Birmingham 2022 will be defending Women’s World Boxing champion in the flyweight (52kg) division, Nikhat Zareen, while the men’s team of eight boxers includes 2018 Commonwealth Games silver medallist Amit Panghal.
The venue for boxing is Hall 4 at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, the UK’s largest exhibition venue and one of Europe’s leading event destinations. It welcomes around 2.3 million visitors and over 45,000 exhibiting companies to more than 500 events every year.
At the Commonwealth Games, the NEC will also host four other sports (badminton, netball, table tennis and weightlifting) and two para sports (para powerlifting and para table tennis).
Boxing has featured at every Commonwealth Games and its precursor, the British Empire Games, since the Games were founded in 1930. It is a core sport, meaning that it must be included in the programme of every edition of the Games.
