https://www.thestar.com/sports/2018/03/03/canadian-champion-fighting-decision-to-leave-him-off-commonwealth-games-team.html
Brampton’s Joshua Frazer emerged as Canada’s best amateur boxer in his weight class last April, winning four straight bouts at the national championships. And when officials chose the competition’s most outstanding performer, they selected Frazer, who would end 2017 with just one loss in 18 official bouts.
But when Boxing Canada named its team for this April’s Commonwealth Games, they selected a trio of Montreal-based male fighters — including one who didn’t win his weight class at the nationals — and left Frazer, the 69-kilogram champion, off the squad.
Frazer appealed that decision to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada after Boxing Canada denied his initial protest, and now awaits a ruling that could include a cash settlement, or Boxing Canada granting him a release from the national team program.
In the meantime, Frazer and his supporters are urging an overhaul of a selection process they say harms Canada’s chances in important international tournaments.
“I’m not angry because, with boxing, anger doesn’t really resolve anything,” Frazer said. “I’m more disappointed in the team. Now I know why we’re not doing as well as we should be doing. It just seems like we’re not sending the best people we have.”
Canada won just one Commonwealth Games boxing medal in 2006, none in 2010, and three in 2014 (when women, competing for the first time, collected two). Canada hasn’t won an Olympic boxing medal since 1996.
Boxing Canada said the ongoing arbitration prevents it from commenting on Frazer’s case, but spokesperson Emilie Garneau said the team selection criteria are made clear online. Everyone knew Boxing Canada would send four women and three men to the Commonwealth Games, and that the small roster could disappoint some fighters.
“It’s important to remember we were only allotted three spots,” Garneau said. “It’s not a matter of us not wanting (to send a bigger team).”
The selection guidelines specify that Boxing Canada give first priority to top-eight finishers from the 2016 Olympics or 2017 world championships. Since no male athlete met that threshold, Boxing Canada had discretion to choose fighters from among its 2017 national champions.
Frazer’s team takes particular issue with the nomination of Montreal’s Thomas Blumenfeld, who won silver at in the 56-kilo weight class but was named to the Commonwealth team at 64 kilos. That spot came open because 64-kilo national champion Arthur Biylarslanov, the only Canadian male to compete at last year’s world championships, left the national team program to turn professional.
Blumenfeld trains with Boxing Canada’s high-performance director Danny Trepanier, who helped select the team alongside Brazilian head coach Joao Carlos Soares Gomes de Barros and a sports psychologist. The trio graded candidates on a 100-point scale that takes both boxing ability and attitude into account, and, Frazer’s camp says, allows nepotism to trump merit.
Boxers are graded on “technical ability” and “potential to reach an Olympic podium,” but the scale gives no weight to national titles or won-loss records. Meanwhile, boxers also earn points for amorphous traits like “lifestyle” and “contribution to team environment.”
Frazer, who scored 50 out of 100, questions the result’s legitimacy. He says he hasn’t spent enough time with Trepanier and Barros for them to grade his attitude, and that he has never met the sports psychologist.
His father and trainer, Dewith Frazer, says subjective scoring lets selectors tilt the process toward boxers who are either based in Montreal or who complied with Boxing Canada’s controversial directive to relocate there.
“Joshua didn’t come to the association for them to decide his future. He decides his future in the ring,” Dewith Frazer said. “And the Canadian public needs to realize their dollars aren’t being spent well. The association isn’t acting in good faith or the best interests of the country.”
The disagreement with Frazer is the latest in a series of disputes arising since Boxing Canada centralized the national team Montreal. It made national team membership conditional on moving to Montreal last year, and withheld Sport Canada stipends and international competition from boxers who, like Frazer, declined to relocate. The rule also prompted Arthur Biyarslanov, Canada’s sole men’s competitor at the 2016 Olympics, to leave the program and turn pro.
Dewith Frazer says he’s open to sending Joshua to Montreal, but that Boxing Canada has never provided details about training, accommodation or medical care. He says that, as a six-foot-four southpaw, Joshua has unique tools that need specialized training to sharpen.
“Even middleweights in my gym, they look like midgets compared to him,” Dewith Frazer says. “European coaches, Cuban coaches — they search for guys like Joshua because he already has a physical advantage.”
Boxing Canada moved its operations in Montreal following a post-Olympic audit in 2012. The study found the most successful boxing teams in London ran programs out of a central location with a single head coach, and suggested Boxing Canada do the same. The organzation hired Barros and compelled team members to move.
Frazer spent eight weeks there before moving back to Brampton last month. After leaving Montreal, he travelled to Jamaica, where he defeated the national champion in his weight class. Frazer, who is eligible to compete for Jamaica, had hoped to represent Canada at the 2020 Olympics but now is requesting a release from the national team program.
“You can’t let someone stop you from getting your goals,” he said. “You have to have your options.”
