DURING the next five weeks chairman of Kendal Judo Club Peter Holme will use my blog to discuss the training programme of a group of boxers from the South Pacific at Kendal Dojo.

By the time the Nauru Boxer's first week is out there will be very few people in South Lakeland who will not know where the island of Nauru is.

The boxers have been improving their English by giving interviews to the Gazette (Monday), BBC Radio Cumbria (Tuesday), and ITV television cameras (Wednesday) - the latter will be shown on Border TV on July 27th - which is exactly one year before the start of the London 2012 Games.

One of the reasons for this interest is the Nauru boxers are the first such group of athletes who have come to Britain in preparation for the Games.

They are slowly getting used to our changeable weather, although it is still nowhere near hot enough for them.

Following a visit to the Mayor's Parlour on Monday they have got down to some serious training with 7.00am runs along the Canal path. On Tuesday they followed this up with pad work with the coach holding up pads attached to his hands for the player's to hit.

They have also been shadow boxing using a large specially built 6ft x 4ft mirror and punching exercises using several bags hanging off the walls round Kendal Judo Club's Dojo.

A boxing match is also being arranged for July 16th against a North West Team. This is to raise funds for the Nauru boxers to help improve their equipment when they return home. The tickets for the event, which will be held in the Kendal Judo Club Dojo, are available at £10 each.