Sudbury pugilist national and provincial champ

BY MATTHEW GILLIES

Sudbury's Amber Konikow and her coach, Gord Apolloni of Sudbury's ONTC (Top Glove Boxing Academy), will be in Budapest, Hungary from Aug. 8-12 for the National Female Boxing Tournament, which pits North American boxing styles against European ones.

For six years, Konikow has been balancing her time between working as a part-time registered nurse for Sudbury Regional Hospital in the intensive care unit and training and competing in boxing.

Konikow's infatuation with the sport started after she took a routine boxing class.

"It was the first class I ever went to," Konikow said. "I liked how the workout was arranged. I liked the group of people I was with. I liked the coach that was there. I liked the idea that once we did the warm-up and started with the technical, I found it interesting and picked up on it, like positive reinforcement."

Training in Olympic-style boxing, Konikow has fought in 10 belts, winning eight.

"She's the best in Canada," Apolloni said. "She's Ontario's champion for provincials and not only that, she's a Canadian champion going into nationals."

Training for the tournament requires Konikow to be in top condition.

"In order to prepare for the tournament, I wake up at 5:30 am, do my run, then I come here and do my training program, go home and take a nap and then come back here at 5:30 pm to exercise more.

"There's a lot of work and preparation for this. I love what I do. It's fun and I enjoy it and you wouldn't do something you didn't enjoy."

The tournament will see a number of female boxers from all over the world competing against one another using different strategies.

"It all boils down to European against North American style," Apolloni said. "We're very adaptable because we have a lot of knowledge as to what goes on in Europe. They're very technical over there and they're very smart. They want you to actually attack them, which is typically what North American boxing style is, to go straightforward and start banging away. The Europeans are just waiting for that to happen but we have a strategy we've been working on."

Female boxing was first recognized in Canada, when female boxer Jen Reed won in the provincial boxing tournament for the female category in 1992 in Nova Scotia. Since then, Apolloni and Konikow have seen a growing popularity in the sport.

Recognizing the growing popularity of female boxing, India's Commonwealth games in 2010 will have a category for female boxing.

"Female boxing is becoming so big now in the world that they had to limit the number of boxers that each country brings for this tournament," Apolloni said. "There are countries like India who's number three in female boxing and Sri Lanka who's not too far behind them. Other developing countries, third-world countries, are developing champions and I think this is a great time for female boxing. I feel that in the next Olympic games in 2012, female boxing will be there."

Konikow shares the same feelings saying, "It's something different and I think once word gets out that a woman is actually doing boxing then you'll get other people curious. It will pique their interests and they may try it out. I didn't know much about it when I started six years ago. A male friend introduced me to it and I enjoyed it."

Married for five years to Joe Hurban, Konikow receives a lot of support from him, and is thankful for how flexible the hospital is with her.

However, both Konikow and Apolloni are disappointed with the lack of support the city and the country gives in recognizing female boxing.

"Sports Canada has cut back on funding here considerably. I used to be full-time here, but now I had to get a part-time job here," Apolloni said.

Canada hasn't won any medals since 1996 in boxing and it's for this reason Apolloni feels that the funding has been cut.