Two high-pro­file in­ter­na­tion­al box­ing camps have been sched­uled for June and Ju­ly at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va.

​The camps will serve as prepa­ra­tion for a se­lect squad of box­ers rep­re­sent­ing the red, white, and black at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow, Scot­land, from Ju­ly 23 to Au­gust 2. The T&T team will be se­lect­ed fol­low­ing the up­com­ing Na­tion­al Box­ing Cham­pi­onships, which will be held from April 8-11 at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do.

​Reynold Cox, an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA), stat­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion ex­pects box­ers from Mex­i­co, Colom­bia, Cu­ba, and Venezuela, among oth­er na­tions, to par­tic­i­pate in the camps. Cox ex­plained that be­cause the as­so­ci­a­tion may on­ly re­ceive two spots for the Com­mon­wealth Games, rig­or­ous prepa­ra­tion over the com­ing months is es­sen­tial.

​Sev­er­al no­table ath­letes will be vy­ing for a place on the Com­mon­wealth team, in­clud­ing ​Nigel Paul, the coun­try’s su­per heavy­weight fight­er and 2016 Rio Olympian. Al­so among the com­peti­tors are Je­re­mi­ah Thomas, one of two gold medal win­ners at the Caribbean Box­ing Cham­pi­onships in Beause­jour, St Lu­cia, last year, Jaden Castel­lano, who al­so claimed a gold medal at the re­gion­al box­ing cham­pi­onships, and An­tho­ny Joseph, a los­er at the first World Box­ing Olympic Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Tour­na­ment, for Paris 2024, among many oth­er fight­ers.

Cox not­ed that se­lec­tion for the Com­mon­wealth Games will be based on spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria such as se­cur­ing a ti­tle at the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, win­ning a medal at a re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment and main­tain­ing con­sis­tent at­ten­dance at train­ing ses­sions.

Ac­cord­ing to Cox, the Na­tion­al cham­pi­onships will fea­ture some 100 box­ers from 20 clubs across the twin-is­land re­pub­lic. This in­cludes a 12-man team from To­ba­go, coached by for­mer na­tion­al box­er Kert­son Man­swell.

At the 2002 Com­mon­wealth Games, Man­swell won a sil­ver medal, los­ing the gold to Cana­di­an Ja­son Dou­glas. He al­so won a sil­ver medal at the 2002 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games, los­ing in the fi­nal to Vic­tor Bis­bal.

At the 2003 Pan Am Games, Man­swell de­feat­ed Amer­i­can Devin Var­gas in the semi­fi­nals, but lost in the fi­nal to Cuban Od­lanier So­lis 3-15, giv­ing him yet an­oth­er sil­ver medal.

Mean­while, a four-mem­ber team com­pris­ing Tian­na Guy, An­gel George, Ab­dul Tay­lor, and Don­nel Phillip will com­pete in the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships but will not be el­i­gi­ble for Com­mon­wealth Games se­lec­tion. This group has al­ready se­cured berths for the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games, sched­uled for Ju­ly 24 to Au­gust 8 in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.