FOUR fishermen turned fighters are refining their craft before taking on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham later this month.
However, the quartet will be used to the travel, having made the trek over from their home of Kiribati to train at the Corner Inlet Boxing Club under the tutelage of coach Scott Bindloss.
“Last Commonwealth Games I was with Boxing Australia, and I wanted something different, so I got informed about some athletes at the games that didn’t have a coach, they were from a country called Kiribati,” Bindloss explained.
“So, made contact and offered my services, I’ve been flying back and forth training them, then COVID hit, they were meant to be over here years ago with me, but it has finally happened with Commonwealth Games.”
Sporting just one mouthguard between them, and no other equipment to their names, the four athletes Toaua Toangke, Eriu Temakau, Betero Haree and Timon Aaree moved to Australia to pursue their dream.
They moved in with Bindloss who has taken them under his wing, teaching them all they need to know about the language of English and the sport of boxing while travelling and training together.
“The highest point on their island is three metres off the soil, so when they got here, they went up Mount Oberon, they’d never been up a mountain before,” Bindloss said.
“They’ve been training with me, living with me, we’ve been travelling the countryside sparring, they’ve got no gear, any gear they have got, I took over years ago.”
“We got their medicals, we got them used to the weather it’s obviously very cold for them with Kiribati being on the equator, they’ve got nothing, so I give them some cash and they live with us and eat with us.”
Taking a group of athletes from a small island in the Pacific to the Commonwealth Games, while teaching them a sport through a solid language barrier is no small feat, but Bindloss has his boys on a tough regime.
“They train in the morning, they’re up at 5:30am training with me, then I go to work then they do a running session at lunchtime, sleep in between and I pick them, and we do a session at night,” he said.
Regardless of their results, competing at Birmingham 2022 is going to be an unforgettable experience and remarkable achievement for the Kiribati team as their coach explained.
“They come from a developing country, they’d never been to cities, three of them have kids, they all have families and they’ve got no money, they’re all fishermen back home so it’s pretty exciting for them,” he said.
“They live a tough life so hopefully it might make them heroes in their little country.”
The three Kiribati fishermen will take off with Bindloss for the AIS this weekend before competing in Birmingham 2022, a massive achievement for the small pacific island nation of just 119,000 people.
Kiribati is made up of over 30 low-lying atolls spread across 3.5 million square kilometres of ocean, the four boxers will be looking to add to their country’s one Commonwealth Games medal, a gold in 2014.
Local club punching above its weight
Bindloss’ team received some funding from PacificAus Sports as part of the Commonwealth Games commission, although the majority of the Kiribati quartet’s journey has been supported off Bindloss’ own bat, much like the Corner Inlet Boxing club itself.
Despite being non for profit, the club, based in Foster and Leongatha, is no stranger to producing outstanding talent, as coach Brad Anderson explained.
“We’ve been to Shepparton, North Melbourne twice, Mornington, we constantly go to these development days to enhance their skills and experience,” he said.
“For the size of us, we’ve produced some really good athletes, gold medals, silver medals at Australian Titles, Scotty’s taken guys overseas, they’ve won in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand.”
“For a little club we punch above our weight, in 2019 we had five at the National Titles, Boxing Victoria have really got behind it to promote boxing in general.”
This year, the club had three representatives qualify for the under 19 National Titles, although Kinesha Anderson and Jaxon Lewis withdrew due to injury, Sebastian Saulwick was able to compete and win silver.
Anderson proudly reminisced on his young athlete’s tournament.
“There’s three categories, school age, junior and youth, Sebastian fought in the juniors, he fought a boy from NT in his first bout, he fought a really good fight to win and get into the gold medal bout,” he said.
“He had a real crack, he wasn’t as experienced as his opponent, he’s only had five fights which was the minimum qualification for juniors, but he was awesome, got a silver, second best in Australia.”
Sebastian is just one of an impressive line of Corner Inlet representatives to make waves in the sport at national and international level.
“It was just disappointing for the other two because they do a lot of training camps through the year, they would’ve been in the youth category for Nationals and winning the Australian title opens the door to go to the youth worlds.”
“We also had Lachie Lewis who won the Victorian title and got knocked out in the Commonwealth Games qualifiers and Jarvis Bindloss just came back from Commonwealth Games trials, they’ve got 100 fights between them.”
Although Anderson ensured that his beloved club is not all about young athletes winning medals in the ring.
“We produce athletes who want to compete, but we’re open to anybody who wants to just come in for fitness and learn the basic art of boxing really,” he said.
“We’ve got kids from nine years old, up to one bloke who’s 61, not everyone wants to hop in the ring, we train everyone the same, even if you don’t want to compete.”
Unfortunately though, as Anderson and Bindloss said, boxing in the region is struggling following the pandemic.
“It’s not great, people know we’re here, but we don’t have a huge membership or athlete base, we don’t really have any sponsors, we try to run off our own steam.”
“But we’re at the point now where it’s been tough, we’re going to have to go and try get some sponsors or else we might have to close the doors.”
“We’re doing it because we love what we do, Scotty and I donate our time 3-5 days a week, but we’re finding it tough because we don’t have the support we could probably do with.”
Closing the doors to such as successful and beloved club would be heartbreaking for all involved, and both coaches encouraged anyone interested in getting involved to do so, and stressed the sport isn’t as intimidating as it may appear.
“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I think sometimes people can be a little bit intimidated, but it’s totally not like that, we’re a really good family unit, boxing really needs a good pump up,” Anderson said.
“Come down, just come down we’re open to everybody, yeah, we want to produce more athletes, but we just like people coming down, as you can see it’s not just guys either there’s girls in there, we’re all ages and all abilities”
“There’s nothing like it.”
Boxing is a great way to stay fit, learn new skills and get stronger and the Corner Inlet boxing club is always looking for new members, they’re based at 2 Holt Street, Leongatha and at the Foster footy oval.
The club will host a tournament in Leongatha on October 16.