STACEY'S BOXING BLOG

Dreams end, but life goes on!

The women’s world championship boxing tournament 2014 has now come to an end. Our team of five boxers came away with two silver medals, both Lisa and Sandy boxed really well in their finals and it has been great seeing my team mates realise their dreams.

Of course, this week has been a rollercoaster for me to say the least. This world championships was unseeded, meaning that the draw is done randomly regardless of ranking… this can result in the very best boxers fighting in the early rounds. In my case, I drew the number one boxer in the world rankings, Elena Vystropova of Azerbijan. She beat me in the European final, so she is current European champion, and she is also the world and Olympic silver medallist with over 100 fights and many years of experience. I gave my very best in the fight and truly believed I could win, but she was too good on the day, and too experienced, and I just couldn’t bridge the gap. After the fight, I was absolutely heart broken. It is impossible in a sport like boxing, to guard against this kind of heart break, you cannot go into a fight with the mindset of trying to protect yourself from disappointment, you have to believe in yourself, and you have to give it absolutely everything at this elite level, otherwise you can get physically hurt as well as just losing! Therefore, win or lose, it can sometimes leave you feeling empty afterwards, since you have given everything.

In the following days after the fight, of course it was a very difficult time, I know that it’s not the end of the world, but it was the end of my dream. It was in January of this year that I met with the GB nutritionist to make a plan to lose 7kg in order to compete in the majors this year. For the last eleven months, my goal to compete at the European and World championships has been the first thing I’ve thought about every morning, the last thing at night, and my days have revolved around preparing myself as best I can…what I eat, how and when I train, sacrifices I make, everything. In terms of the worlds, my training began in the summer, training every day to prepare my body for the tough schedule ahead. The preparation included a ten day camp in Kazakhstan in very difficult conditions and over 40 rounds of sparring over the ten day - the Queen’s cup tournament in Germany - and ten days of hard training in Japan before we came to Korea for the worlds. All of that work, sacrifice, commitment and dedication, all for me to then get here, draw the world number one in the first round, and my dreams all be over in just 8 minutes. It wasn’t easy to accept.

However, after losing my fight, I turned my focus to two things; firstly to support my team mates and our staff as best as I can, and secondly to work hard on what I got wrong in the fight. So this week, I have trained twice a day, and have gone along to the sparring sessions held in a boxing gym close to the venue. The sessions are organised at every major competition, so that the boxers who have not progressed to the later stages of the tournament, can at least get some sparring with other countries. The gym was great, filled with boxers and coaches from all different countries, so many languages, cultures, training methods, and crazy tracksuits! But we all have one thing in common, which is a love for the sport of boxing – sport has a quite unique way of bringing people together.

Of course, my first ever world championships experience has been incredible. We have visited two countries that I never even imagined I would ever see (Japan and Korea) so that has been an adventure in itself. Also, I’ve never competed in something on this scale before, when we arrived and were driving to the hotel from the airport, there were signs everywhere about the event, and it has been all over the TV here as well, it’s really quite odd to box and then see yourself later on the TV back at your hotel! The city of Jeju has been bombarded by the boxers and coaches of 75 different countries, all walking around in their national kits, and often using every spare bit of car park or grass verge to shadow box, skip, or do pad sessions! The experience of warming up for fights, sparring, and just sharing the hotel in general with people from so many countries has been immense. Yesterday I sparred in the gym with boxers from Morrocco, Sri Lanka, Thaliand, Phillipines, Mongolia and Dominica to name but a few!

Finally, I must mention that we’ve had a fantastic team out here, our nutritionist, doctor, analysts, physio, sports psychologist, and of course our coaches are all the best in the world in their field. They have made it an absolutely brilliant trip and it has really been a privilege to represent our team and our country. My next goals are to attend the podium potential assessment camp at GB boxing in Sheffield next month, and the England sparring squad session which is also next month; I will then take a little time off to rest and recover from all the training this year, before getting back into training ready for next year. However, first of all we have a 25 hour journey home to contend with, which will leave me with only 10 hours from landing at Manchester until I have to get up for work! I am very much looking forward to coming home to see Ruby and my family and friends, and of course coming back to work to see everyone in PACE and all my friends at Parrs Wood.

Thank you very much to everyone who has supported me and our team, it has made such a massive difference when being so far from home!

Miss Copeland