By Ed Price
Staff Writer
Article dated Aug. 8, 1995

Two boxing teams liked Augusta so much on recent visits that they want to come back.

Coaches from Finland and Poland have asked Augusta Boxing Club coach Tom Moraetes if they can bring their Olympians to town before the 1996 games in Atlanta.

``They want a gym they can come in and prepare for the Olympics,'' Moraetes said.

Augusta has already been chosen as the final training site for the 12-man U.S. Olympic boxing team, which will arrive in July.

Moraetes would like to have three other teams in at the same time, as long as he could work out the scheduling. He invited the Finns, who would probably only send two or three boxers to the Olympics, after they brought a team to town last month.

Then Polish coach Czeskaw Ptakcq, who has hit it off with Moraetes despite a language gap, asked if he could bring his team - likely five or six men - to Augusta next July.

``They said that the first day they looked at the gym,'' Moraetes said.

If time in the gym could be found, having other teams in town would help spice up the public sparring sessions planned for the U.S. team.

Moraetes said he will run the idea by USA Boxing, the U.S. governing body, when he attends a coaching seminar in Colorado in October.

``(The U.S. team is) the No. 1 priority,'' he said, ``because I want to bring home a bunch of gold medals. (But) bringing other teams in would pay back the community for supporting us (the boxing club) for 20 years.''