Thir­teen (13) box­ers were called to be­gin na­tion­al team train­ing on Mon­day at the Fight Fac­to­ry Box­ing Gym in Ch­agua­nas.

​The call fol­lowed the con­clu­sion of the Na­tion­al Box­ing Cham­pi­onships at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do. The team com­pris­es win­ners and fi­nal­ists from the elite di­vi­sions, as well as mem­bers of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games squad: Tian­na Guy (women’s 60kg), An­gel George (women’s 75kg), Don­nell Phillip (men’s 65kg), and Ab­dul Tay­lor (men’s 60kg).

​In ad­di­tion to the CAC Games, a team will be se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent the coun­try at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow, Scot­land, from Ju­ly 23 to Au­gust 2.

​Oth­er team mem­bers in­clude An­tho­ny Joseph, the light­weight cat­e­go­ry win­ner and fi­nal­ist Ner­aj Ma­hadeosingh. Joseph he out-point­ed Ma­hadeosingh 5-0 in the fi­nal on Sun­day; Dar­nell Sinaswee and Ish­mael Hy­po­lite, the fi­nal­ists for the wel­ter­weight di­vi­sion, which Sinaswee won; Ron­dell Oliv­er, who claimed the cruis­er­weight cat­e­go­ry ti­tle with a con­vinc­ing 4-1 tri­umph over Samuel Edghill; and the duo of Jaden Castel­lano and Shalome Phillip, both of whom bat­tled in the fi­nal of the light mid­dleweight di­vi­sion that Castel­lano even­tu­al­ly won com­fort­ably 5-0.

​Nigel Paul and Je­re­mi­ah Thomas, both of whom were se­lect­ed de­spite hav­ing no op­po­nents in their re­spec­tive brack­ets.

Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA), ​Reynold Cox, stat­ed that Mon­day’s open­ing ses­sion fea­tured an ori­en­ta­tion, reg­is­tra­tion, and an ex­pla­na­tion of the code of con­duct and train­ing sched­ules. The se­lec­tion process is geared to­ward in­creas­ing the na­tion­al tal­ent pool and en­sur­ing qual­i­ty per­for­mances that lead to more medals and ti­tles.

​The qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Guy, George, Tay­lor, and Phillip for the CAC Games in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (June 24-Ju­ly 8) came de­spite a win­less record at the Qual­i­fiers in Mex­i­co.

Both Cox and Ce­cil Forde, pres­i­dent of the TT­BA, told Guardian Me­dia Sports that the box­ers will be pre­pared prop­er­ly from now to give a good ac­count of them­selves. In ad­di­tion to the train­ing ses­sions, the lo­cal box­ers will take part in two in­ter­na­tion­al box­ing camps in June and Ju­ly at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va. These camps, Cox said, will com­prise box­ers from Guyana, Cu­ba and Colom­bia, among oth­er coun­tries.

T&T BOX­ERS

Ab­dul Tay­lor – 60kg

An­tho­ny Joseph – 60kg

Ner­aj Ma­hadeosing – 60kg

Don­nel Phillip – 65kg

Dar­nell Sinaswee – 65kg

Ish­mael Hy­po­lite – 65kg

Jadeon Castel­lano – 70kg

Shalome Phillip – 70kg

Je­re­mi­ah Thomas – 80kg

Ron­dell Oliv­er – 90kg

Nigel Paul – 90+kg

Tian­na Guy – 60kg (Women)

An­gel George – 75kg (Women)