Calum French and Kiaran Macdonald are two boxers who have been forced to play the long game.
And they are playing it quite beautifully after striking gold at the Algirdas Socikas Tournament, their first competitive appearances of 2021.
The two North-East talents, French from Gateshead and Sunderland’s Macdonald were part of the GB Boxing squad in Lithuania which returned home to the UK with eight medals, made up of five golds, one silver and two bronze.
French and Macdonald have much in common and not just geography.
Both have Olympic ambitions, but for Calum and Kiaran their eyes are not on the delayed 2020 games in Tokyo in July and August but Paris in three years time.
And golden runs in Lithuania provide proof those dreams are more than justified.
For French, this was his maiden medal at light-welterweight after his old lightweight division was removed as an Olympic weight.
Boxing for the first time since the Golden Gloves competition in Serbia 18 months ago, the Birtley ABC star had a tough opening hurdle to clear against the home nation’s representative.
He clinched a clean sweep of the cards to eliminate Lukas Pusvaskis before meeting the much-vaunted Lounes Hamraoui in the semi-final, where French beat the Frenchman in the bout of the day, judging the distance to perfection and scoring superbly to take a 4-1 split of the all-Lithuanian official panel.
And French produced an equally-classy final performance to defeat Enrico La Cruz, from the Netherlands, four of the five judges scoring him as the victor against the European Games bronze medalist, with the other marking it level at 28-28.
Calum, a European Championship bronze medalist in Kharkiv in 2017 and a Commonwealth Games quarter-finalist a year later in the Gold Coast, has found himself behind his friend and Birtley team-mate, Luke McCormack in the GB pecking order, but the 25-year-old is looking good for that number one slot in the next Olympic cycle.
The same goes for Macdonald who, currently, is playing second fiddle to Galal Yafai who will be representing Team GB in Japan this summer at flyweight.
But the Sunderland ABC star (pictured) showed in Lithuania that he is ready to emerge from the shadows after winning gold having reeled off a sequence of clean sweeps in Kaunas.
Kiaran’s opening match was a Battle of Britain as he despatched Scotland’s Lennon Mulligan 5-0 before coming up against Lithuania’s Marius Vysniauskas in the semi-finals, dominating the home star with the judges from Germany, Denmark. France, Lithuania and England all scoring him a clear winner.
Facing Ibrahim Boukedim in the final, the 24-year-old reigned supreme with the all-Lithuanian judging panel scoring him the winner.
Rosie Eccles, Conner Tudsbury and Scott Forrest also won titles on finals day while in an England v Wales featherweight final, there was joy for the Welsh as Billy Unsworth edged Niall Farrell in a close-fought encounter.
The eight medal haul for the GB side was completed by bronze medals for Ramtin Musah and Kerry Davis.
Words: Roy Kelly Picture: GB Boxing
