Kiribati boxer makes ring debut at CWG

Kiribati’s Taoriba Biniati (left) fights Mauiritius Isabelle Ratna at the Commonwealth Games. — AP

Taoriba Biniati spends most of her practice time whacking a punching bag hanging from a breadfruit tree by the road side in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. “I spar with the boys but the boys will not hit me which is a problem,” the 18-year-old Biniati said. “I don’t get real hard training because they won’t hit me.”

Finding a female sparring partner close to home on Tabiteuea, one of Kiribati’s string of 33 coral atolls, has proved impossible. It has taken a journey to the other side of the world for Biniati to enter a bout for the first time to fight a woman — at the Commonwealth Games.

“There is no qualifying,” she said. “I am the best female boxer in the country ... I am the only one.”

Hundreds of spectators were in the arena to watch, and Niniati’s fight against fellow novice Isabelle Ratna was broadcast around the world. Ratna, the 24-year-old from Mauritius, won the four-round bout to move into the quarter-finals, leaving Biniati weeping.

“I am sad but also proud, I wanted to do well for my country,” Biniati said. “I’ll be back and I just want to do better next time.”

The unfamiliar surroundings, under the bright television lights and loud cheers, did not faze Biniati.

“It’s a huge amount on her shoulders and I think she’s done a great job,” team manager Derek Andrewartha said. “She was absolutely awesome. I’m really proud of her.”

But soon she’ll be back in Kiribati in the central Pacific, to a street where there will be more tropical trees than spectators, working on the punching bag because there’s no other female fighters yet.

“That’s about all we’ve got,” Andrewartha said. “Taoriba is from a very poor family. She left school when she was very young.

“She has never been anywhere ... she’s in Glasgow and she’s having a great time.”