Perfect competition day for the Welsh talents at the Tammer Tournament
24 January 2022Further thirteen bouts took place in the last day of boxing at the 41st Tammer Tournament which opened the European boxing calendar in 2022 in Tampere, Finland. The young Welsh team produced a remarkable last competition day, all of their U22 talents as Romeo Costa, Garan Croft, Ioan Croft and Taylor Bevan won their tough contests.
The annual Tammer Tournament was a combination of Round Robin and a normal competition with the participation of 37 boxers. Despite of the hard situation, the governmental decisions and some restrictions, altogether 10 nations, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland, England, Wales and the Netherlands sent their boxers to the 41st Tammer Tournament. The Technical Delegate of the competition was Mr. Dragoljub Radovic of Montenegro.
The venue of the traditional competition was the Pyynikki Sports Hall as in the previous years. The host of the tournament is the local boxing association and one of our experienced Technical Delegates, Ms. Anna Laukkanen was the organizer. The Tammer Tournament returned to the boxing agenda after two years of break due to the Covid-19 pandemic following the last edition was held in November 2019.
The safety of all participants, the continuous medical checks, the social distancing, the hygienic preparations, the vaccination check, wearing masks and all of the health controls were the responsibility of the local organizers in Finland avoid any new Covid-19 cases during the new edition of the Tammer Memorial Tournament.
The bout of the day
The Norwegians reached some excellent results in the recent months and their squad has been preparing with full speed to the upcoming EUBC U22 European Boxing Championships and EUBC Elite European Boxing Championships. Norway’s Mindaugas Gedminas is an experienced middleweight (75kg) boxer who competed already all levels of boxing excluding the Olympic Games. Gedminas is a Lithuanian-descent boxer which made his fight more unique against Lithuania’s 19-year-old strong Aleksandr Trofimcuk. The Norwegian boxer used his longer hands to stop the Lithuanian attacks and he was slightly better in the exchanges to win their difficult contest.
The surprise of the day
The management of the Welsh boxing team picked several young talents still in 2019 to prepare them well to the upcoming Commonwealth Games which will be held in Birmingham, England this July. Their youngest national team member Romeo Costa has just joined to the elite and U22 age groups this January but amazed in the last day at the Tammer Tournament. The 18-year-old boxer had unpredictable footwork in the contest against the more experienced English talent, Joseph Tyers which was the decisive between them at the light welterweight (63.5kg).
The Round-up
Finland’s Vilma Viitanen achieved silver medal at the 2017 EUBC European Women’s Junior Boxing Championships and she was in the Top8 at the Budapest 2018 AIBA Women’s Youth World Boxing Championships. She joined to the elite age group in January 2020 and quickly won the gold medal at the Gee Bee Tournament. Viitanen will be turning to 21 later this year and she could be Finland’s new sensation in women’s boxing. The attractive girl has got fantastic technical skills which she proved against Jonna Hakkarainen at the women’s featherweight (57kg) and won their contest by unanimous decision.
The Croft brothers are famous of their talents and both young Welshmen won their contests in the last third day of boxing at the 41st Tammer Tournament. Ioan Croft had to do his very best to beat Norway’s Martin Skogheim in the battle of the U22 hopes at the welterweight (67kg). His twin brother, Garan Croft outpointed Finland’s Hannes Tolonen in their light middleweight (71kg) contest. The next Welsh success was delivered by Taylor Bevan who had a tough and narrow success over England’s Commonwealth Youth Games winner Aaron Bowen at the light heavyweight (80kg).
Finland’s 19-year-old super talented girl, Pihla Kaivo-Oja defeated two opponents in the previous days at the Tammer Tournament and she won her third contest as well in Tampere. Kaivo-Oja has got nice technical skills and she found the best weapons against Maria Mehtala of Finland in their light flyweight (50kg) contest. Sandip Panday is a new Finnish hope at the men’s bantamweight (54kg) who defeated Ari Qadr Baktyar in the last day of boxing in Tampere.
