A FIGHTER from Eastburn-based Thai boxing camp Jai Muay Thai has been chosen to represent the UK in the forthcoming European championships.

Chris Taylor, 21, will travel to Cyprus in November as part of the England Muay Thai Federation team. Over a ten-day period, he’ll go toe-to-toe with fighters from 38 different countries.

His coach, and gym owner Robin Shepherd, said: “It’s a great honour for a gym like ours in a little place like Eastburn to have a fighter representing the whole country.

“I could never have expected we’d come this far when we set up here. We’re sandwiched between some good clubs in Leeds and Harrogate so I knew we had to work that bit harder to get known and get our fighters out there.

“But we kept going and kept pushing and we’ve just got better and better and this is the culmination of the work we’ve done as a club.”

Robin, himself a former fighter in Thailand, first started running Muay Thai classes from Silsden Town Hall in 2000.

In 2004, the sport's increasing popularity allowed him to move to a bigger gym at Eastburn Mills.

Robin said: “The standard of English Muay Thai is now only second in the world to Thailand – and it’s their national sport.

“So that’s why we have to make sure our fighters are top notch and they put the training in so they can go up against the top gyms in the country and the world.”

But while standards in the sport get better and better, most fighters in the UK – all of them in Jai’s case – are amateurs. It requires a huge amount of commitment from the athletes in terms of time, effort and finance.

Robin said: “Muay Thai gyms in other countries like Russia are given grants to take part in these kind of competitions, but because the sport isn’t an Olympic sport we can’t do the same in the UK.

“Hopefully that’s going to change soon. The standard of Muay Thai is the best it’s ever been in the UK but the sport needs to organise itself under one banner to push forward.”

Last year, Muay Thai was included in the International World Games Association and will be represented in the official programme of The World Games in Poland in 2017.

Robin said: “We’ve had a bronze in the Europeans, a silver in the World Championships so there’s no reason we can’t bring home a gold this time round.”