BOXING
TWO times national boxing champion who has “lived and breathed” the sport for seven years, is looking forward to a rest over the festive period.
Last month Barnard Castle based boxer George Peacock couldn’t disguise his delight when he won the 2023 National Association of Boys and Girls Championship finals at Bridlington.
He said: “I knew that I had won the fight and I felt like I had done enough. When the decision came down, I just couldn’t control the emotion and was leaping about in the ring.”
The momentous win at Bridlington came only nine months after he secured his first national title, the 2023 National Youth ABA Championship, but was for a category two classes heavier than the first.
The decision to move up weight categories was not something he took lightly, talking it over with his coach at Barnard Castle Boxing gym, Craig Harrison.
He said: “It got to the point because I was growing, I was finding it more difficult to make the weight.
“Craig and I decided to move up in the weight category, but rather than just one we decided that we should jump to the 71kg weight.”
To ensure he made the weight, alterations had to be made to both his training regime and diet.
George said: “For the first time I started going to the gym as well as the boxing gym and thanks to my sponsors I was able to work with a nutritionist as well.
He added: “He [the nutritionist] worked out what I needed to eat on a daily basis based on my activity and I was eating five meals a day, but because it was clean food, I could eat plenty of it.
“I don’t know how many calories I was eating, but it was a lot.”
The diet of chicken, rice, pasta and porridge not only helped George bulk up, but gave him plenty of energy to go training three times a week at the boxing gym, together with daily running sessions and weight training at Glaxo gym, all of which he fitted in around his day job at William Smiths, in Barnard Castle.
George said: “I could have made the weight by just eating high calorie foods, but I wanted to do it properly and be the best I could be.”
Training doesn’t stop even when the teenager is at home.
He said: “You have to do the work outside of the ring and the gym as well. If you’re going to get to the next level, you have to live and breathe it. Training is only going to get you so far.
“There are a lot of people I’m boxing now that have been on the telly and I watch their matches to understand how they fight. I have watched that much boxing and I take tips off each boxer I watch and still pick up stuff.”
The two-times national champion says he will have a “little rest” over the festive period and will enjoy Christmas with his family, but come the new year will be focusing on the Amateur Boxing Association’s 2024 championships, which kick off in the spring.
George added: “I’ll be a senior next year and it’s at that level you get considered for Team GB, so you have to do well in the senior bouts to get picked.”
