Focus has now been shifted to the Commonwealth Games in 2022 in Birmingham, England, the director of boxing at the T&T Boxing Association T&TBA) Reynold Cox said on Tuesday.
The T&T team is coming off a successful display at the recent World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia where Super Heavyweight fighter Nigel Paul put the icing on the cake of an overall decent T&T performance, by winning a medal and a US$25, 000 incentive, while Juan Rodriguez, the lone T&T boxer at the just-concluded Youth Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia just missed out on a medal in the flyweight division.
The T&T team returned home last Friday after Rodriguez's loss to Guatemalan Jose Mijangos within three rounds. However, speaking to Guardian Media Sports Cox, a Warrant Officer with the T&T Defence Force was high in praise of his charge, saying he believes he could have done better, and even mount the podium.
"It was a good experience for Juan, he could have done better, maybe even mounting the podium, but in the end, it came down to his experience to handle fights at that level. He started well, he won the first round and then he dropped back in the second round and in the final round he still had the fight within his reach, but he just let it slip away, experience as he got a bit tired," Cox explained.
However, in spite of the result, Cox said the sport had a bumper year in 2021, as he outlined the challenges they have had in getting to train due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were still able to perform creditably at the highest level of competition.
" We had a very good year, coming out of a pandemic, we had challenges to train and prepare the boxers. We were still able however to go to the World Championships and pick up a prestigious medal. When you look at some of the performances of the boxers, they did well against international competition, so that gave us a lot of positive vibes going forward. We're now looking forward to 2022 being a better year. We have Commonwealth Games next year.
It was encouraging to see them perform at the level they did this year," Cox said.
Paul who earned a medal (bronze) at the World Championships by virtue of finishing fourth in the super heavyweight category, will be a key member of the T&T team, as Cox and his team plan to improve on the boxer's fourth-place finish, as well as a number of potential fighters who are being groomed for action.
" We have a future's champions team and that targets the younger ones coming up, more or less we try to camp them, keep them in a training environment and that so far has worked for us. For the Commonwealth Games next year we're looking forward to doing a little better than we did in the previous edition in 2018. We have Nigel Paul, a bronze medallist at the World Championships going to Commonwealth Games so we're aiming to keep him as one of the top boxers in the region and we will push up the other boxers," Cox concluded.