Amatuer boxing in Thailand

[evanr00]

I was noticing that alot of the well known Thai champions(as pros) usually come from a kickboxing backgroud(Galaxy, Sahaprom, etc) with no amatuer boxing experience.

So I was wondering is there really any amatuer boxing in Thailand? Do they even have an olmypic boxing team?

[boxmel]

Yes, they have an Olympic boxing team and a National Governing Body for boxing. Some may have started out in kickboxing but, as far as I know, the boxers only box.

[emile]

Their Olympic boxers are huge stars and often don't turn pro. They are much richer and more famous if they win medals, since Thailand doesn't normally win too many in the Olympics. In 2004, 3 of their 8 medals, and all of their men's medals, came in boxing - and this was the best performance by Thailand in their Olympic history (they also had 4 medals in women's weightlifting and 1 in women's tae kwon do).

Two of the most famous recent Thai Olympic boxers Somjit Jongjohor and Manus Boonjumnong have both been criticized a lot in the Thai press for becoming playboys after their wins in the World Championships and Olympics resepctively, and not training seriously enough.

[locoxelbox]

Thailand is one of the strongest amateur boxing nations, specially in the lower weight classed. They have won three Olympic gold medals in boxing and none of them turned pro:

1996 Somluck Kamsing
2000 Wijan Ponlid
2004 Manus Boonjumnong

Most of their National team boxers never turn pro. Of course they have good financial conditions but it's strange anyway since pro boxing is also very popular in Thailand. Of their Olympic stars only a few turned pro. Only Payao Poontarat and Chatchai Sasakul became world champs (I believe at least, too late to double check) and Pramuansak Phosuwan lost in a title bid but only after a long amateur career (two-time olympian).

I believe almost all boxers (amateur or pro) once started with Muay Thai and then went to traditional boxing.