Kolesnikov takes up coaching duties-Boxing |14 January 2011

Kolesnikov, who has been coaching since 1991, arrived on Sunday January 9 and is here on a one-year contract.

The first Russian coach to work here was Vladimir Nevski and he came in 1980, a month before the Seychelles team left for the Olympic Games in Moscow, USSR. Then came Dan Pozniak, who was instrumental in guiding now retired Seychellois boxers like Ralph Labrosse, Rival Cadeau (now Payet), Jerry Legras and Roland Raforme into champions. Pozniak, who died on February 3, 2005, was a light heavyweight Olympic Games gold medallist in Mexico City in 1968. He came to Seychelles in 1983 and spent five years here. Stanislav Stepashkin, featherweight Olympic Games gold medallist in Tokyo in 1964, Vladimir Simonov and Oleg Kouzmin are the other three Russian boxing coaches to have worked here.

The last foreign coach to work here was Cuban Pedro Pacheco. An experienced coach who has worked with some of Cuba’s top boxers, among them Olympic Games and World champions, Pacheco came in 2006 and left in March 2009.

G. G.