PNG BOXING AIMING MEDALS AT OLYMPICS
Prime Minister James Marape on February 19, 2025 in his keynote address at the local announcement of PNG NRL’s entry into NRL in 2028 – where more signings took place – made some interesting reference to boxing.
That Tumat Sogolik won a silver medal at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games in 1978 and also touched on professional boxer late Martin Beni’s talent prior to Independence in 1975.
Marape was speaking at Sir Hubert Murray Stadium, a venue which now had two separate stands named after Beni and another high performing athlete – weightlifter Dika Toua.
Marape zoomed in how Chief Minister Michael Somare (later knighted to be Sir) adjourned an Assembly meeting in 1974 to go down to Hubert Murray Stadium to watch the fight against Australian Colin Cassidy.
PNG Boxing Union executive Dr Gideon Kendino and Secretary General Martin Liri are hoping that if the CEO of the country acknowledges the important role sports played in promoting the country on the global stage – he is not far off the mark with his knowledge on boxing in relation to its significance to our country’s journey to its 50th year of sovereignty.
Boxing is actually the second best performing sport at the Commonwealth Games with three (3) medals – behind weightlifting which has won seven (7) of the 14 PNG has landed since debuting in the games in 1962. Dika has her name inked into the weightlifting contribution as Commonwealth Games medalist.
“I was at the event at the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium on that day and was quite impressed that the Prime Minister picked those historical facts to drive home how sports, with particular reference to boxing, has made to our country’s journey as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary as a sovereign nation,” Liri said.
“I used to write about (Marape) him when he played rugby league but that fact sharing – focusing on boxing was pretty impressive, I thought.”
“He also made specific reference to Dika Toua and swimming gold medalist Ryan Pini, who happened to one of the sports heavies invited to this rugby league event.”
Kendino, Liri, Referee and Judges Director Kazu Team with support from head coach Mark Keto and trainer Jack Willie are hard at work to identify new talent as boxers from our elite squad move on to pursue other interests, particularly pro boxing.
The departure of some of its best talents like John Ume and Jamie Chang to professional boxing has thrown the gauntlet down to this team to start the process of finding replacement talent.
Ume was in Gold Coast preparing for a professional fight and more experienced boxers are likely to follow that pathway.
But that is one of the challenges that amateur boxing is up against as is the case in many other countries which don’t have the financial capacity to fend off these kind of challenges from pro boxing.
“That is what it is and we cannot hold back boxers who want to pursue pro boxing so that they can start earning some money from their fights,” Kendino said.
“But we have a program where the next group of boxers have to step up and events like this (Kokoda Cup Challenge) give us the opportunity to continue this identification process.”
With the 2026 Commonwealth Games approaching fast, efforts to find the required talent becomes available during the Kokoda Cup Challenge over Easter.
Australia will be sending a team to the April 19 event at the Lamana Hotel’s Gold Club against PNG. It is a corporate event with tables of 10 selling at K8000 as some entertaining boxing will be on show.
The event can be likened to a re-building phase for
affiliate associations throughout the country, who are also part of the development process and one such avenue it the National Championships in Lae which an ideal event to identify talent.
Liri said it is not a huge exodus of elite boxers as there are still a good number from the 2023 Pacific Games medal winning squad, who are still motivated to represent PNG.
Partners like PNG Olympic Committee and PNG Sports Foundation are being acknowledged for their continuous support as well as Kumul Minerals Holdings Limited, National Finance and Lamana Hotel, who are major sponsors of PNGBU’s development programs.
“Of course we are not getting ahead of ourselves by talking about the Commonwealth Games which falls under the auspices of PNG Olympic Committee but we just need to be prepared based on past experiences,” Liri said.
“What we have is where the pool of boxers will come from so we have to maintain the collaboration with our major partners.”
“It is a work in progress and any funding support we receive from fund raising initiatives like the Kokoda Cup Challenge is critical for us as it also provides us quality ring time for our boxers against decent competition which Australia provides.”
Tables can be secure by emailing Kendino on gkendino45@gmail.com or whatsapp 72955944 or Liri on lirimartin2014@gmail.com or whatsapp 73334390.
Boxing is among the best performing sport at the Commonwealth Games having won 3 medals (1 silver and two bronze), second to weightlifting’s 7 medals.
Boxer Kenneth Hopkins contributed to boxing’s first Commonwealth Games in 1962 in Perth, which was a bronze while the other bronze was won by Lynch Ipera in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.
“I was a sports reporter with the National newspaper that time and covered Ipera’s run to the bronze. Personally I thought the coaching staff then made an error with their fight plan as Ipera was a different style of boxer and was dominating his opponents until the quarter finals when they changed the tactic to go for points and then run.”
So like Kendino, Liri believes that boxing is a sport that has the better potential to win PNG’s first Olympic medal at the Brisbane Olympics 2032.
“But the real serious development needs to start now – not a few years before 2032- if we want to achieve this.”
“Despite what others say we must throw some serious money into sport like boxing, weightlifting and other individual sport like taekwando, judo who stand a better chance of developing high class athletes to land that elusive Olympic medal.”
“That means our political leaders must take some of statements sports administrators are making more seriously and direct the Government officers who they have mandated to head sports organisations to adopt strategies to put systems and programs in place to build towards these objectives.
“Those officers are continuously blaming lack of Government funding to sports as an impediment to these lofty dreams.”
“The Marape-Rosso Government has done an impressive job with getting PNG into the NRL for 2028.
“It would be nice to throw a similar effort and backing into Olympic sport like boxing and others so that we can get our naturally talented sports men and women into more advanced high performance training to land that elusive Olympic medal for PNG.”
“These are big dreams but any dream starts with small steps and when fund raising efforts like the Kokoda Cup Challenge gets good corporate support, it would indicate that we as a country want more from sport than what we are getting at present.”
“When we were preparing for the Pacific Games in 2023 in Solomon Islands we had PNG Sports Foundation plus other Government agencies throw in some good financial support to us when we hosted the Kokoda Cup as a forerunner to the Honiara Games.”
“Boxing won 8 Gold medals to help catapult PNG up the medal tally to 5th spot.”
“If boxing and athletics (8 gold) didn’t pick up gold on the last week of competition PNG was in danger of recording its worst ever performance at any Pacific Games.
“That would have been very embarrassing for the country with the largest population in the Pacific, with the largest national budget and largest economy – record such a performance.”
“Our national pride would have got some good flogging from critics.”
“Let us make a concerted effort to do things a lot more smartly, drawing from our past experiences coupled with the new information available and design some realistic strategies to lift our standards to higher levels than at present,” Liri said.
