Sport
27 July, 2024
Duo’s golden fights
THE local Freedom Boxing Gym is steadily becoming home to some of FNQ’s most prolific fighters, with two of their seasoned boxers picking up gold at the Ipswich Regional Championships in late June.
Since its inception four years ago, Freedom Boxing has been training some of Cairns’ fiercest fighters, proving that boxers up north are up to the challenge against southeast fighters.
As is the case for 24-year-old Vincent Lacandula and 15-year-old Aidan Monk, who have been boxing for two years and have just come from a momentous win at the Ipswich Regional Championships and have already picked up southeast Queensland titles.
“I believe we’re just as good, if not better, than fighters down south,” said Freedom Boxing founder and coach Patrick Kelly.
“Conditions are a bit harder for us because of the distances we have to travel to compete, but we don’t feel intimidated by southeast fighters. There’s amazing talent in FNQ and we’ve showed what we can do,” he said.
“I have a passion for fitness, and I think boxing is a good discipline for me, it has benefitted my mental health and I like the limitless number of things that you can learn from it. It’s an art and I’m the artist."
For Mr Monk, boxing is all about staying fit and focused.
“I’ve been boxing for two years, and I enjoy the fitness of it,” he said.
Both fighters attribute their success to the top-quality training they’ve received from Mr Kelly, resulting in a large catalogue of victories, trophies and belts.
“I’ve done three fights so far, I went into novice titles, that was my first fight in the 50kgs division and lost that and then went to the NQ Games and for my recent fight at the Ipswich Regional Championships I picked up a win,” Mr Monk said.
“When I moved to Freedom Boxing, I fought with the Boxing Queensland Association, and I won a southeast Queensland title, novice titles, Sunshine Coast regional titles, and my most recent title is the Ipswich Regional Championship which happened on the last weekend of June,” Mr Lacandula said.
“But my biggest achievement is that I’ve dedicated myself and have only lost once in the past three years. What I enjoy about training here is that our coach cares a lot about us, not only as fighters, but as people.”
Mr Lacandula is now hoping to pick up another Golden Gloves title in Brisbane and Mr Monk is aiming for a state title.
