PNG Boxers received a generous sponsorship of about K2000 from Adventure Kokoda Head Trek Peter Morrison last week Sunday to support Boxing Team PNG in their training expenses in preparation for the upcoming Pacific Games.
“I was very privileged to present PNG Boxing Head Coach Mark John Keto and PNG heavyweight Arthur Ray Lavalou with 2 x K1000 sponsorships from Adventure Kokoda,” stated Adventure Head Trek Peter Morrison on his Facebook post.
In representing PNG Boxing Union to receive the sponsorship were Head Coach Mark Keto and PNG heavyweight boxer Arthur Ray Lavalou.
According to Peter Morrison, the funds will go into supporting two selected PNG boxers.
“A male and female boxer will be selected from the current national squad in training for this year's Pacific Games to access these funds to cover bus fares, food & travel costs to and from their villages or settlements to attend training each day,” Morrison stated.
“The difficulties these young athletes face daily to even just get to training safely, let alone do it on a full stomach would have most of us give up altogether. Thanks to PNG Boxing Union for your support also,” he said.
“Our company Adventure Kokoda is proud to support the PNG National Boxing Team,” he added.
Neville Warupi & Laizani Soma are the recipients of the sponsorships. These two are not new to boxing as they both have their shares of representing PNG in boxing in their respective divisions.
“We decided to nominate Neville Warupi because of his commitment to daily training attendance. For females, we got Laizani because she has been part of the team for quite a long time and now that she’s a mother, she would need the support financially to help provide for her child so she can focus on training. I believe that these two athletes deserve this sponsorship from Kokoda Trek,” said Head Coach Mark Keto.
“I just want to say thank you to Kokoda Trek for the continuous support towards PNG Boxing. Adventure Kokoda has been supporting boxing ever since Peter Morrison became part of Team PNG Boxing. This is not the first time where he sponsored boxing as Team PNG Boxing and we are so grateful to Peter and his Kokoda Trek Organization for supporting us. Through this sponsorship, it will boost the boxers' morale because it’s evident that Team PNG Boxing doesn’t get much support from business houses in terms of financial support,” said Head Coach Mark Keto.
“Through small sponsorships such as the one coming from Kokoda Trek is much more, especially in the life of the boxers. It’s a big thing.”
Meanwhile, Keto also expressed his gratitude to PNG Sports Foundation for sponsoring their gym.
“Not forgetting Sports Foundation for giving us this gym here. That’s one of the most important that boxing lack. We don’t have a gym and now through the Sports Foundation CEO, they gave us a space where now we have a gym where we can train in our own scheduled timetable and to prepare well. Previous years we don’t have a gym and our preparations were not that really to that standard,” said Keto.
PNG Boxing Union Head Coach Mark Keto also extends his appreciation to other sponsors that have been constantly supporting Team Boxing PNG, such as PNG Olympic Committee and Kumul Mineral Holdings.
“I also would like to thank Kumul Holdings for their support as well for sponsoring Sports which boxing is one of them,” he said.
Photo Credit: Adventure Kokoda
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