Golden Glove 2015, Europe Cup Conegliano, Italy January 16th-17th
EPIC student Kam Doyle, 14, came back from the Golden Glove Europe Cup in Italy with two gold medals and a bronze to do his club and country proud. It was a huge tournament with just under 1,000 competitors representing 13 Countries taking part and his golden success made up for losing his second fight in the World Championships last September by a single point. There was no such disappointment this time around despite an average of 15 competitors in each of his -52k categories meaning that Kam had to have 5 fights to win but he beat an Italian in the points final (it went all the way to first to score) and a Czech fighter in the Light Continuous to do the double. He then won a hard –fought bronze in the -57k division, losing by a single point to the overall winner to cap a memorable weekend for the EPIC fighter.
Brown sash Kam (he goes for his black in May) began training at the tender age of 3 in Birmingham but moved to Bristol with his family at the age of 7 and began training with the renowned Instructors Sean Viera and Phil Allen. Since then Kam has trained alongside his younger brothers with Andy Cleeves and now, having turned 14, has been training for over 7 years stating that “I enjoy kickboxing as it has taught me so much-physical discipline, self- respect and control, self- awareness, but mostly how to respect others.”
With his favoured techniques of jumping spinning kick and a reverse punch Kam has always showed an aptitude for the competitive side of his art, saying that although he used to prefer points, he now enjoys points and continuous equally. At the age of 11 he went to Athens and fought in 10/12 group, only his second comp abroad but he won 3 first places including the open weight and 200 euros-“I remember feeling nervous but now I don’t get nervous at all as the more I compete the better it becomes.”
Kam enjoys a great relationship with his coaches and believes that this really helps him as he knows they want to help him achieve his best. “This gives me a lot of confidence and I respect them a lot for getting me where I am today and I want to thank them a lot “ Kam has helped teach the younger children for around 3 years now and enjoys warching them progress especially as 3 of them are his younger siblings, so it’s nice to be able to help them and see them also achieve good results. Kam sees himself building on this in the future, stating that he definitely sees himself becoming a Coach, ensuring that EPIC will be a force to be reckoned with for many years to come.
Well done Kam!
