Review of the year
BRITISH boxing has never had a year like 2021. It surely won’t again for another century. Amid a global pandemic, that for the first time in their history saw the Olympic Games postponed but completed, the GB team secured its best medal haul at the Olympic boxing tournament in a hundred years.
The Great Britain squad was outstanding, winning six medals in total at the Tokyo Games. Karriss Artingstall and Frazer Clarke both won bronze. Ben Whittaker and Pat McCormack reached the finals, only losing to excellent Cuban opposition and securing highly impressive silver medals. But brilliant Olympic gold medallists Galal Yafai and Lauren Price have to be 2021’s male and female amateur boxers of the year.
2021 began with uncertainty. The impact of the pandemic made it hard for athletes to train as normal and travel to competitions overseas. There was the worry that the Games, even though they had been delayed, could still be cancelled. The Olympic qualification process had to be restructured, reduced to one continental tournament.
