The Galleon - Portsmouth's Official Student Newspaper

Thirteen boxers from the University of Portsmouth Boxing club stepped up to the unthinkable challenge of hitting a million punches on punch bags in a 12 hours period.

The task was at first projected to be completed in 24 hours, but the ambitious team felt they could manage it in half the time.

The unique event was in aid of raising money for the club’s annual match against American universities Washington and Georgetown, due to happen in January.

The feat was seen by the elite members of the squad as a warm-up for a world record the Boxing club hope to break later in the season. There, they will hope to see five boxers hit over 100,000 punches in three hours.

The million punch challenge involved 13 participating boxers tasked to achieve 77,000 punches each.

The squad arrived at their location, a specialist boxing gym in Fratton, for 6pm on Friday 7th October, and were pounding the bags by 6.15pm. All boxers started at a very fast rate, with the club President Richard Tyler hitting 20,000 punches within the first hour.

The counters were being made to work at speed by the boxing squad, notching on a white board every thousand achieved by each boxer. The count system worked by the boxers counting one of their hands’ punches and shouting out when they reached 500, so registering 1,000 punches. It was a test of concentration as well as supreme physical and mental toughness.

Each boxer worked at their own rate, taking water breaks and food breaks way into the night, as the looming presence of cramp and fatigue became greater.

The first finisher was Helen Tamlyn, who hit her 77,000 punches in a five hours and 45 minutes, at an average of 3.7 punches per second.

In maintaining a steady rate of punching and taking very few breaks, Helen showed she is one of the University’s major future prospects in the sport.

The next to finish their thirteenth of a million punches was club President Tyler and coach Wayne Gardiner.

There were some severely bruised hands and aching shoulders when the squad finally hit their landmark target at 3am on Saturday morning.

The team managed to raise £1,200 from the event.