Top junior amateur Kiwi moving up into youth division
16 year old Taiwan born New Zealander Ting Chen also known as Kyle Chen, will be moving up from Junior to Youth division in amateur this year. Currently the Keri Keri high school student record is 38 – 6 – 0.
Originally a rugby play for his high school and his local club, he decided to give boxing a go for training. When Chen showed potential at the age of 13, he decided to put all his focus into boxing while still being a straight A+ student with NCEA Excellence.
Chen has been dominating the Cadet and junior division in Australia, Taiwan and New Zealand since 2013. With his Dual citizenship he has won the Taiwan National Championships twice and New Zealand Nationals three times. He has also won New Zealand Golden Gloves twice and the 2016 Australian Golden Gloves open.
Chen represented New Zealand in the 2015 AIBA Junior World Boxing Championship, reaching into the top 16 of the tournament. At the time Chen entered the tournament with 19 bouts to his name.
So far Chen has boxed in seven youth bouts, two of them this year. His first five youth bouts were originally supposed to be junior fights, however due to lack of willing opponents in the division, Chen fought boxers who were mostly two years old, but Chen still won every bout.
Chen will be flying to Australia after Easter weekend to take part in an AIBA sponsored training camp that will last a little over a week. The camp is to help prepare Oceania youth boxers for the 2018 Youth Olympics. Chen long term long term goal is to compete in the 2020 Olympics, 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2024 Olympics.