RIO Emmins is the toast of Billericay & Wickford ABC after making history for the club.

The 14-year-old boxer became the club’s first national champion after winning the ABA Junior Cadet Championship’s 48kg class.

Club chiefs were delighted with the result and have high hopes for the Basildon fighter’s future.

“It is brilliant for Rio and a real feather in the cap for the club,” said head coach Les Cooke.

“We were very confident he would win the championship and, in all honesty, it was a comfortable win for him.

“He won all three rounds in the semi-final and all three in the final with all five judges going for him.

“From the club’s point of view it is great because we have had five national finalists since the club was revamped five years ago but Rio is out first national champion.”

Emmins started his campaign at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge sport centre with a unanimous points win over St Paul’s Jack Donkin on Saturday.

Echo:

Champion  Rio Emmins with his national medal

And he followed it up in the final the following day by earning another unanimous verdict against John Doyle (Salisbury) to take the national title.

The James Hornsby School pupil had a trial for England three weeks ago and Cooke believes the teenager’s prospects for representing his country are good.

In the meantime, Cooke is hoping to line-up rematches against Thomas “TJ” Harty and Regan Murray after the Billericay & Wickford fighter lost to them.

The head coach said club chiefs had hoped Emmins would face them in the semi-final and finals in Sheffield to measure how much progress the Essex fighter had made.

But Harty and Murray were defeated at the quarter-final stage of the competition and Emmins had dominated their victors in the Steel City.

Emmins was not the only Billericay & Wickford boxer making history at the weekend.

Thirteen-year-old Ollie Willsher became the first boxer with type one diabetes to fight since a change in ABA rules.

He boxed Berry Boys’ Billy Forbes in a skills bout at the Berry show at James Hornsby School in Laindon.

“We were told by an ABA official at the show that Ollie might have been the first boxer with type one diabetes to fight in Europe,” added Coooke. “He is definitely the first in the UK.

“His prospects look good and the plan is for him to have two or three more skills bouts and have a proper bout at our next show.”

That event will be held at the Holiday Inn at Basildon’s Festival Leisure Park on Saturday, May 30.

Billericay & Wickford will be holding a small show at their Main Event Gym in Heron Avenue, Shotgate, this Saturday.

Twelve boxers from the club will be in action and boxing starts at 8.30pm. Admission is £10.