Gladstone’s Olympians come home

Article by Lisa Maynard, Gladstone Observer – Posted 16th Aug 2012

GLADSTONE’S Billy Ward arrived back in town yes­ter­day after his Olympic debut to an ecsta­tic wel­come from fam­ily, friends and fans.

Decked out in Aus­tralian colours, the crowd packed into the Glad­stone Air­port to greet the 19-​year-​old boxer who touched down about 3.40pm (AEST).

Billy was Australia’s light­est boxer, fight­ing it out in the light-​flyweight division.

He was knocked out of the com­pe­ti­tion 26 – 4 by Cuban fighter Yos­bany Veitia Soto.

“Awe­some” is how Billy described his Olympics expe­ri­ence. He said it was hard to explain the nerves and excite­ment he felt. Billy’s nerves may have got the bet­ter of him a lit­tle but he said next time he would know what to expect and how to improve.

“I fought the best I could,” he said. His mes­sage to the community’s kids is that when peo­ple put you down you have to keep going.

“You’ve got to be a shep­herd not a sheep,” he said. The boxer gave thanks to his fam­ily, coach, spon­sors and the Glad­stone community.

After spend­ing time with his fam­ily Billy will be straight back into train­ing. His focus will be on com­pet­ing at the World Ama­teur Box­ing Cham­pi­onships next year and the Com­mon­wealth Games in 2014.

After that, all eyes will be on the 2016 Olympics in Rio.