The ABS Scotland Squad travelled out to Serbia last week to take part in the Belgrade Winners Tournament alongside boxers from across Europe and Asia. Team Manager Tom Brown and Coaches Mike Keane and Mark Geraghty travelled with a talented squad which included Josh Taylor, Aston Brown, Joe Ham, BrianPeacock and Scott Hartley.
This was a very valuable trip for the boxers as they would face strong challenges from top class boxers from across two continents.
With the event split over two venues, our boxers first stepped into the ring on Thursday afternoon. The first session proved reasonably successful with Josh Taylor, Aston Brown and Scott Hartley all overcoming opponents from Uzbekistan, Algeria and Bulgaria respectively. In what were all tight contests, all three Scots stepped things up late in the contests to finish stronger and ultimately progress to the Semi-Finals.
In the other two bouts, Joe Ham and Brian Peacock came up against experienced opposition. Joe going down to the clever Indian Thapa Shiva, whilst Brian was involved in a 0-0 stalemate which Uzbek boxer Ahmad Mamadjanov won on a countback.
Despite these defeats, mood in the camp was still high as Scotland progressed with three boxers into the Semi-Finals.
The competition became understandibly tougher in the Semi-Finals with all three Scots facing Hungarian opposition. Josh Taylor paired with Miklos Varga , Aston Brown against Arpad Klasz and Scott Hartley facing Imre Szello.
In another close contest which could have gone either way, Aston Brown unfortunately went down 9-5 to Klasz, whilst Scott Hartley was forced to retire in the second round of his contest against Szello. This left Josh Taylor to fly the flag for Scotland and he didn’t disappoint. In another strong finish to a close contest, Josh progressed to the final with a 7-6 victory.
Last up for our Commonwealth Games Silver Medallist was all action Mongolian Bariadii Javakhlan. Coaches Mike Keane and Mark Geraghty had watched Javakhlan in his semi final and knew the Monogolian wouldn’t make life easy for Josh due to his persistence coming forward and strong movement. Using his fast hand speed and footwork, Josh eventually emerged with the Gold medal in an 11-9 win.
So a Gold Medal and two Bronze medals were collected from what was a challenging tournament against tough opponents. The experience of this trip will be another step forward in the boxers progression and once again shows that Scotland are now producing the talent able to compete on the International stage.
