Prepa­ra­tion for the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 2013 Na­tion­al Am­a­teur Box­ing Cham­pi­onships, which will take place at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, Hamil­ton Hold­er Street, Port-of-Spain, from Jan­u­ary 30 to Feb­ru­ary 3, is in full swing.

On Fri­day, am­a­teur box­ers, coach­es and ad­min­is­tra­tors from the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo to the Cos­mic Box­ing Gym in Mara­bel­la, and many oth­ers in be­tween, were en­gaged in in­tense prac­tice ses­sions.

Men, women, boys and girls were skip­ping, strik­ing the punch­ing bags and spar­ring, while the coach­es were pro­vid­ing in­struc­tions.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TA­BA), Ce­cil Forde said he is pleased with the com­mit­ment which the var­i­ous gyms have shown in the lead up to the com­pe­ti­tion. The T&TA­BA is the gov­ern­ing body for am­a­teur box­ing in T&T and will over­see pro­ceed­ings in the up­com­ing na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

"Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 gyms have reg­is­tered for this cham­pi­onship, with well over 100 am­a­teur box­ers al­to­geth­er," said Forde.

"Each weight di­vi­sion has more than five or six par­tic­i­pants so the cham­pi­onship should be very com­pet­i­tive."

With just two and a half weeks to go be­fore the open­ing day of the com­pe­ti­tion, a sense of ur­gency could be felt by the box­ers who have been work­ing on the sharp­en­ing and fine tun­ing of their skills. Most coach­es have in­di­cat­ed plea­sure in the progress of their charges thus far, but some have re­mained cau­tious, say­ing some work re­mains to be com­plet­ed.

It is un­der­stood that the cham­pi­onship will be used as the ba­sis of se­lec­tion of na­tion­al fight­ers for up­com­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions for 2013.