Record-Maker

ENGLAND have a precocious talent on their hands. Royston Barney- Smith has both won and defended the European Schools championship gold medal over the last two years. He managed the feat by first going to the Europeans as young as he could possibly be. “That was nerve wracking, that one. Deep down I was always confident but I was the baby of the group. I was the youngest,” he tells Boxing News.

- John Dennen

He has been improving since then. “I’ve worked on a lot of things and I’ve mastered a lot of things as well. It’s got a lot easier, the progress is better,” Barney- Smith said.

He was a more experienced boxer when he went to the European Schools championships in Bulgaria in May. In the semi-final he faced his acid test, Russia’s Vadim Alexeyev at 50kgs. “The Russian was world number one,” Royston said. “He was a counter-puncher, an aggressive counterpuncher.”

“The Russian was my hardest,” Royston continued. “He was a totally different level.”

But Barney-Smith with “basically a lot of feints and coming forward but not committing myself” won a unanimous decision. “If I won that fight I knew I’d win the final,” he added.