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Sports correspondent & historian with |
When the first bout of the 41st North Island Golden Gloves kicks off in Tauranga on Saturday, there will be one substantial change from the inaugural North Island event held in Taupō in 1984 – women in the boxing ring.
It is hard to believe in our mostly equal rights society of 2025, that New Zealand amateur boxing was a male-only sport for 95 years from when the NZ Boxing Association was established in 1902.
There was a myriad of excuses of why women weren’t allowed to box.
A world-wide push to allow women to be given the right to choose boxing as a sport, saw Kiwi women licensed for combat in the ring, in 1997.
The 1997 National Championships saw just light middleweight, Karen Ellis (CNI), and light welterweight Caroline Sayle (Auckland) earn titles in the ring.
The introduction of girl’s age-group competition at the 1999 Nationals, resulted in a pathway which would see a number of Kiwi women boxers perform with distinction on the really big stage.
It didn’t take long for NZ to make their mark in women’s world boxing. Auckland pugilist Melanie Horne returned from the 1st World Women’s Championships in the USA during 2001, with a bronze medal in the welterweight division.
Odette Van der Meer also boxed with distinction in defeating a Chinese boxer before losing to the Russian gold medallist in quarter final action.
However, it took until 2012 before Women’s Boxing made its Olympic entrance at the London Games.
Auckland Lightweight Alexis Pritchard and Flyweight Siona Fernandez wore the Black tracksuit of NZ, with absolute pride.
Alexis Pritchard wrote her name into NZ Olympic history, becoming just the sixth Kiwi boxer (from 29 representatives) to win an Olympic bout (or better), when she dispatched Rim Jouini from Bulgaria before losing to a Russian boxer.
Just a year prior to the 2012 Olympics, Thea Awhitu, shone the spotlight on the BNZ age-group pathway, at the World Junior Women’s Boxing Championships in Antalya, Turkey.
The young Taranaki fighter defeated Russian and German opponents, before becoming our countries only boxer to make a World Boxing championship final.
Thea used all her boxing ammunition, before having to concede defeat inflicted by Reyhan Cahir from the home nation, by way of a point’s decision loss.
This meant that NZ’s women boxers had outperformed their male counterparts at World Championship tournaments.
Thea Awhitu’s silver medal and Melanie Horne’s bronze medallions, outranked the men’s contribution, of the David Tua bronze medal at the 1991 World Men’s Boxing Championships.
The long-running North Island Golden Gloves has a essential purpose in the development of our countries emerging talent.
For many youngsters, it will be their first step on the BNZ pathway, which can take the most talented to senior national titles and representing NZ at world tournaments.
Only the future can tell, if the latest edition of the North Island Golden Gloves to be held at the Bay of Plenty Youth Development Trust headquarters will produce another Melanie Horne or Alexis Pritchard.