Sunderland fighter Kiaran MacDonald to represent GB Boxing at the World Boxing Championships

The bi-annual championships will take place in Belgrade, Serbia later this month and MacDonald is set to represent the North East ahead of Washington’s Olympic twins Pat and Luke McCormack.

MacDonald is one of the more experienced members of the squad set to travel having been part of GB Boxing’s Podium squad for more than four years.

The Sunderland fighter travelled to the Tokyo 2020 Games as a sparring partner to help prepare the boxers that competed for Team GB at this summer’s Olympic Games including the McCormack brothers.

The championships provide an opportunity for a new generation of boxers to showcase their talent at a major tournament and GB Boxing’s performance director, and long time trainer of former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, Rob McCracken believes the event will give GB Boxing’s coaches a clear idea of the potential within the group.

“The world championships is an incredibly tough assignment, so this is an opportunity for a new group of boxers to test themselves at the very highest level,” he said.

“There is a lot of talent in this team, however [the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 means] they have had very little competition over the last 18 months.

“Taking part in this tournament will be a great learning experience for the boxers and will enable myself and the coaches to get a clear idea of where we are and what we need to do to develop this group.”

Wearside’s MacDonald, who has boxed 31 amateur fights in his career - the most recent of which came in a unanimous decision over Ibrahim Boukedim in May, will be joined at the championships by featherweight Niall Farrell, light-middleweight Harris Akbar, middleweight Lewis Richardson, welterweight Harvey Lambert, light-heavyweight George Crotty, heavyweight Lewis Williams and super-heavyweight Delicious Orie.

Farrell competed at the 2017 world championships in Germany and is the only member of the team with a major medal to his name having won flyweight silver at the 2017 European Championships in Ukraine.

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