By Gareth Rees: Great Britain will have a team in the World Series of Boxing (WSB) event for the first time since it was established in 2010. WSB is an international amateur team competition run by the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) which is amateur boxing’s governing body.
The British team will be called the British Lionhearts and will include Olympians Andrew Selby, Josh Taylor and Fred Evans who went on to win a Silver Medal in London. Olympic Super-Heavyweight gold medallist Anthony Joshua has yet to commit to the team, whilst Olympic Bantamweight champion Luke Campbell has been ruled out due to weight issues. This is to do with WSB only having 5 weight categories compared to the Olympics with 10.
The team will be based in the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Whilst many see this event as bordering professional, the fighters will be able to compete in this as well as the traditional tournaments such as World and European Championships.
The 2012-13 WSB season consists of two groups of six national teams who face each other in home and away fixtures. The top four teams in each group qualify for the quarter-finals where fixtures are home and away which is the same for the semi-finals. The final will then be held over two nights in a neutral venue. Teams will have 15 fighters with the majority of the fighters being from that country, with a small number coming from other countries who don’t have a home team.
The British Lionhearts first fixture will be against the USA Knockouts in Los Angeles on 15th November, with their first home fixture against Italia Thunder at Celtic Manor, Newport on 23rd November. The other three teams in Britain’s group are Kazakhstan, Germany and Ukraine.
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