Amateur boxing on the ropes

Miss Smith, my teacher in Sub A, seemed an unlikely boxing fan, but she was the first person to introduce me to local pugilism.

That was way back in August 1973, when Pierre Fourie challenged US legend Bob Foster for the world light-heavyweight crown in Albuquerque.

Until then I had known only about heavyweight Muhammad Ali, courtesy of my parents.

Miss Smith told us about Fourie's valiant but unsuccessful challenge, and read to our class the newspaper reports describing the fight.

But, for some reason, she never told us about the other major bout involving a South African that year - Arnold Taylor beating Mexico's WBA bantamweight champion, Romeo Anaya.

Apologies to her if she did; maybe I was daydreaming.

Taylor's victory on November 3, 40 years ago, was ground-breaking.

Apart from becoming the second SA fighter to win a world title (after Vic Toweel, 23 years earlier), he produced a performance that earned him an eternal spot in boxing history.

Taylor famously got up from four knockdowns - three of them in the eighth round - to knock Anaya out with a single blow in the 14th and penultimate round. It is still regarded by some as the greatest title fight of the 53.5kg division.

Professional boxing in SA at the time was still unaffected by anti-apartheid politics, but Taylor's amateur dreams had been scuppered when SA was excluded from the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

He had been a star in the amateur ranks, and given SA boxing's rich history at the Olympic Games - with 19 medals it used to be the nation's richest medal sport - it is not unreasonable to assume he might have won a medal in Japan.

The Games will return to Tokyo in 2020 after 56 years, but there are no obvious Arnold Taylors in the wings.

The state of amateur boxing in SA is below par and the national federation is currently suspended by the International Amateur Boxing Association for administrative woes.

Hopefully, the suspension will be lifted after fresh elections for a national executive in Pretoria on Saturday. I hope that the new executive of the SA National Boxing Organisation sets about developing plans to win Olympic medals.

The last time SA won Games silverware was in 1960, and the last time SA won a boxing gold was in 1948. In the post-isolation era, from 1992, SA's amateur boxers have achieved little, progressing to the second round at best.

Our best chance, Bongani Mwelase, turned professional after winning gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games; the Indian boxer he beat in the final went on to take bronze at the 2008 Olympics.

The new executive of Sanabo should have just one focus - producing Arnold Taylors and Mwelases for Tokyo 2020, if not Rio 2016.

They should remember that the older generation of boxing fans still talks about SA's amateur stars, like Willie Smith (gold in 1924), Gerald Dreyer (gold in 1948) and George Hunter (gold and boxer of the Olympics in 1948).

We need some new heroes .