26 April 2012

Women boxers at the AIS

| johnboy
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women boxers

Andy has been out to the AIS with his camera and sent in a lengthy set of photos with this note:

Yesterday I went out to take some photos of the women boxers at the AIS.

In the lead up to the World Championships in a few weeks, some ladies from Brazil, New Zealand and of course Australia are sparring together in order to hone their skills. Oddly enough, the World Championships form part of the qualifying for the London Olympics.

I went to take photos of part time Canberra resident Bianca “Bam Bam” Elmir who has just returned from intensive training in Ireland. Currently the Australian Flyweight champion and also the Oceania Boxing Bantamweight Champion, Bianca is close to attaining her goal of Olympic Qualification. While I was principally there only to take photos of Bianca, I was quite impressed with the attitudes of the other young ladies in training. Thus it became a brief visual exploration of womens boxing.

Some may look more suited to ballet than boxing, but it’s not hard to recognise that they’re a group of athletes with fighting spirit. While I had some expectations of what was to happen in the ring, I was also quite interested to see that the referee was very involved and had things under firm control.

Boxing would have to rate as the most difficult to photograph sporting activities I have yet tried. I think it might be slightly easier than group photos of two week old Burmese kittens in a dark room, but not by much.

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Disinformation11:04 am 27 Apr 12

I think that it’s very interesting that without knowing that they’re boxers, they could be soccer players. It’s also good to see that they shatter my stereotypical expectations with ribbons braided into their hair and nail polish. This makes me think that there’s a sponsorship deal in there somewhere.
“Hard enough to go nine rounds in the ring? Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

devils_advocate8:40 am 27 Apr 12

The female shoulder girdle is a lot smaller than a male’s, so absolute punching force is probably reduced a fair bit, although having been a “sparring partner” (read: punching bag) I can confirm a female boxer will hit harder than a lot of similarly-sized males.

Of course far more important is the neck muscles, which stablilise the head, those are probably more important to how susceptible one is to a knockout.

Also the chest isn’t a strategically important place, as noted below they use chestguards, the point hits are same as for guys, under the ribcage and behind the elbow (i.e kidneys), and of course the jaw.

I was curious as to how they protect themselves, given they are physiologically different to males.

They wear chest plates but don’t tend to punch there, according to this article in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/12/women-boxing-live-tv-olympics

Apparently low blows aren’t seen as as bad in women’s boxing, milkman, if you were thinking about that too.

Great photos. I particularly like the close up of the boots and their arms are amazing. This has been an arm intensive week on RA.

Milkman – say something useful or shutup. These athletes are pretty amazing. I hope Bianca does well for Aus

OK, I’m going to ask the question we’ve all been too embarrassed to ask: do they punch the other chick in the titties?

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