GB prospect Kayla Allen bullish about Olympic prospects as boxing's fight to LA continues in Sheffield

The English Institute of Sport has been hosting the World Boxing Cup finals since Wednesday with the individual finals in 13 weight categories across men’s and women’s divisions commencing at lunchtime today.

For the boxers it marks the first major tournament of the next Olympic cycle, one they hope will culminate in an appearance at Los Angeles in 2028 and a medal around their neck.

For the sport itself, that place is far from assured. As it stands, boxing – which has been a core sport at the Olympics seemingly forever, producing greats such as Muhammed Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Lennox Lewis and Anthony Joshua – is not part of the programme for LA.

The International Olympic Committee withdrew its recognition of the old International Boxing Association over a lack of financial transparency and concerns over governance.

Gender controversies in Paris didn’t help, and that global sporting conundrum almost landed on Yorkshire’s doorstep this week.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin-Yu-ting were at the centre of gender rows in Paris with their journeys to gold medals followed at every turn with questions over their eligibility to box as women. They had been thrown out of the world championships hosted by IBA last year but were allowed to compete in Paris under IOC guidelines.

World Boxing, the new governing body that is hosting these inaugural finals in South Yorkshire, has taken over the governance of the amateur sport in a bid to show a stable footing on which to regain Olympic recognition. It also needs national federations to join the body and show its ability to stage major events, the event in Sheffield being a significant one. An important meeting with the IOC committee in the new year is the next crucial gatepost on that journey.

World Boxing was confronted with a big test this week when it was alleged by Taiwan’s Sports Administration that the new body had questioned Yu-ting’s eligibility to compete in Sheffield. World Boxing officials counter-claimed that the Olympic gold medallist had not registered for the competition.

Boxing also left Paris with question marks about judging, the subjective way fights, and therefore medals, are decided. The Great Britain boxing team had particular cause for complaint after they were on the wrong end of a number of questionable decisions – Rosie Eccles and Delicious Orie to name just two of the Sheffield-trained boxers who felt their Olympic hopes were ruined by the judges’ scoring.

All this politics provided the backdrop to semi-final bouts staged yesterday lunchtime in an arena that is just down the stairs from where England and GB boxers train at the English Institute of Sport.

Orie, Eccles and future Olympic medallists Lewis Richardson and Cindy Ngamba all fought in the first round of this inaugural series here in Sheffield in January, but with their Olympic journeys now done for this year, focus switched to the new breed coming through in the GB Boxing programme.

And London’s Kayla Allen could be one to watch. She has only been on national programmes for two years having graduated from the England Boxing squad to its neighbours in Sheffield on the GB programme.

She bludgeoned her way into today’s final of the women’s 60kg category with a second-round stoppage of Korea’s Sukyung Khan, a bout fought at close quarters but dominated by Allen’s vicious left.

And she stayed on the front foot in the mixed zone straight after, her knowledge of the politics above her refreshing.

“Boxing will be in the Olympics,” she said confidently. “You’ve got the likes of Wladimir Klitschko driving it now, before that there wasn’t. Now you’ve got ex-boxers that were world champions driving it.

“If you cut boxing out of the Olympics, grassroots will completely collapse. It’s not what the sport needs.

“I only started two years ago. Without GB and without the England Boxing programme that built me up and for which I’ll be forever grateful, I wouldn’t be here.

“When I’m in that GB gym I’m looking up at that wall and seeing all our Olympic medallists. At the back of my mind I’m thinking am I not going to get the chance to be on that wall?

“There will be boxing at the Olympics, trust me. Everyone thinks it and we’re all training towards it.”

Allen described these World Boxing Cup finals as a stepping stone to the bigger events ahead, the inaugural World Boxing world championships in Liverpool next year, the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and, hopefully, the Olympics.

The destruction of Yang can only help.

“It was very scrappy,” she admitted. “But I like it when they come forward, it makes you find your shots, you don’t have to rush your shots. People on the back foot annoy me sometimes, but that’s what I’ve learned in the gym, to be composed.”

In the 66kg semi-final, Dione Burman of Leicester needed a split decision to see off Brazil’s Beatriz Oliveira Soares.

“I was nervous after the count in the third,” said Burman, who was rocked on her heels and temporarily stopped by the referee. “I knew I’d won the first two rounds but with that count it could have gone either way.”

With the Olympics also on her radar, Burman is another not letting the uncertainty knock her off course.

“I’m hoping boxing gets back in,” she said. “But I’m not too worried because I think it will. I’m more focused on what I can control.”