LYNEHAM High student Adrian Farquhar turns 15 in May, but the young boxer is already looking ahead to the birthday after that.

“Next year I’ll be 16, so I’ll be able to go the Commonwealth Games if I win at Nationals,” he says quietly, confirming he is talking about beating men aged up to 32, in the 46-49kg light flyweight division.

Adrian speaks with nonchalance, even for a teenager, shrugging as he slowly and deliberately wraps his hands before a three-hour training session, one of six he puts in every week at Stockade gym in Dickson.

“Getting to the Olympics is one of my main goals, so I’ll probably keep boxing for a while,” he says with quiet assurance.

These are big dreams, especially for someone who only took up the fight game about 18 months ago, but there are several reasons to think they could well come true.

First, his record of 10 wins from 11 fights can’t be ignored, and neither can the Australian under-16 title he won in February. A gifted athlete, Adrian was already competing at the top of his age group in various running events before he took up boxing. And he’s always known how to throw a punch, having practiced Kempo Karate since just after he learned to walk, taught by his father, Bobby, a former world champion who has run courses for the Army, Navy, Air Force and SAS.

“I always enjoyed martial arts, but I mostly went in it for my running, because the other boys were so much bigger than me and we thought boxing might help with my strength, for sprinting,” Adrian explains.

As he found out, the strict weight divisions in boxing actually means taller, slimmer fighters are often more successful.

“He’s blessed; he was born for the sport,” says Bobby, referring to Adrian’s height and “phenomenally long” reach, compared to his weight. A quiet, unaggressive demeanor is another of his son’s most valuable assets, he suggests.

“Look, he’s not an aggressive boy; he’s a very quiet boy,” says Bobby. “And because he’s not aggressive, he’s not really a ‘fighter’. He’s a boxer, so he uses his skills in boxing.”

Bobby sees amateur boxing as an artform where the aim, like fencing, is to “score without being scored against”. Of course, losing a point in boxing often means getting punched in the head, so does it hurt?

“Not really,” says Adrian, “because you’ve got headgear on and you’ve got other protection, so it’s not too bad. And you’ve got a referee, so if anything gets too bad, the ref will stop it.”

Adrian’s Australian under-16 title qualifies him for the AIBA Junior World Championships, being held this August in Kiev, Ukraine. Unfortunately, Boxing Australia only has funding to help seven boxers out of 13 divisions with the cost of the trip and, due to his limited experience, Adrian isn’t one of them. That means he and Bobby are looking for sponsors and fundraising opportunities to help him get to Ukraine in four months and represent Australia for the first time.

“I think I have a good chance of going well over there,” Adrian says. “I’m just going to rely on my technique and stay relaxed.”

For more information on supporting Adrian, go to adrianfarquhar.com