Siàn O'Toole is a 20 year old female boxer from Droitwich West Midlands, Siãn stands at 5 foot 7 and fights out of an orthodox stance in the Lightweight division. O’Toole has won over half of her amateur fights claiming 19 wins out of 32 bouts. This does not really reflect her achievements as she has claimed 3 national youth titles along the way.
Siãn currently fights out of Hall Green ABC and is trained and mentored by former British and Commonwealth welterweight champion Frankie Gavin.
I managed to talk to Frankie about his young prodigy and asked him how good he thought she was and how far he thought she could go? The former world challenger said “ Siãn trains extremely hard, she has the potential to do very well in the sport. She has a had a few ups an downs lately, lost a few fights which could easily of went her way, but has also won a gold in Ukraine this year. Hopefully luck will be on her side this coming season”.
I asked O'Toole, who is your favourite boxer and why? She informed me “it would have to be Roy Jones junior, because in his prime I think he was the best in that era”. I then asked the 3 time youth national champion, what is the best fight you have seen? She told be “Morales against Barrera, it was an all out war between to fighters at there peak”. My next question to O'Toole was, what inspired you to take up the noble art? She smiled as she told me “it was because of my brother, he did it so I wanted to beat him”.
I then asked Siãn, what has been your hardest fight? She told me “I fought a girl from Kosovo when I went to the European championships. She was the current world champion and it was my 14th fight. I held my own at first but her experience showed as the fight went on”.
My final question to Siãn was, do you have aspersions of turning over to the pro ranks? O'Toole told me “I’d definitely would like to go pro but not for a while, I want to work my way back onto Team GB because I was on there for over a year and I miss it. Then hopefully work my way to qualifying for the Olympics in 2024 before I even think about turning professional”.
Dexter’s Thoughts
Frankie Gavin has mentioned Siãn to me on a number of occasions as one to watch in the amateur ranks. I then saw her training at Eastside gym on Sunday, where I saw Frankie warm her up on the he pads and also her go to work on the bags. She is then did a bit of sparing against some of the male amateurs that were there. Siãn to be fair held her own and looked very impressive on the pads. She has a great mentor in Frankie Gavin who is unquestionably one of the best amateur boxers Britian has produced. He knows the game inside out and has had his ups and downs in his career. I’m sure he will pass on some of his knowledge which will help O'Toole in her amateur career and pro career. I look forward to seeing how far this aspiring young fighter can go.