For­mer T&T Olympic box­er Kirt Sin­nette has been tipped as the chair­man of the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol, and as a di­rec­tor of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T Board.

His pend­ing ap­point­ment to the Box­ing Board has breathed a sigh of re­lief in­to the heart of the lo­cal box­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, as no box­ing could have tak­en place with­out the board. In fact, since April 28, no box­ing has tak­en place since no board has been ap­point­ed.

Once con­firmed, Sin­nette, the for­mer in­ter­im Leader of the Con­gress of The Peo­ple (COP), who con­test­ed the Port-of-Spain South seat un­der the Coali­tion of In­ter­est ban­ner of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) at the April 28, Gen­er­al Elec­tions, will join an­oth­er COP mem­ber Ger­ard Small, who was ap­point­ed to the T&TEC Board on June 18.

Sin­nette, 51, a for­mer World Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (WBA) Fede­latin Su­per Mid­dleweight cham­pi­on, is the on­ly box­ing board mem­ber to have cho­sen so far, as the re­main­ing four mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to be con­firmed by next week, said Ce­cil Forde, pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion.

The fra­ter­ni­ty has been wait­ing since April 28, the date the coali­tion gov­ern­ment led by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress claimed vic­to­ry at the gen­er­al elec­tions and led to the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of the then board that was led by Dr Bar­ry Ish­mael, and com­prised Dr Rochelle Mo­hammed, Ter­ry Young, Christo­pher Brath­waite, and Kwanieze John.

Forde said that Sin­nette, who has a pro­fes­sion­al ring record of 25 pro­fes­sion­al bouts (22 wins and 3 loss­es), it sig­nalled an im­me­di­ate re­vival of the sport, which had been life­less with­out a board. “ The ap­point­ment sees the resched­ul­ing of a se­ries of box­ing cards, amongst which in­clude a Pro­fes­sion­al-Am­a­teur (Pro-Am) card on Au­gust 9 at the Gold­en Fist Box­ing Gym in Pe­tit Val­ley, Diego Mar­tin.

Ac­cord­ing to Forde, there will al­so be a card by the Mitch Ath­let­ics Box­ing Gym in Cou­va next month, as well as an­oth­er am­a­teur box­ing card to be put on by for­mer na­tion­al box­er Kert­son Man­swell in the sis­ter-isle of To­ba­go on Au­gust 16.

The TT­BA is­sued a re­lease in May that point­ed to the shut­down of its box­ing pro­grammes as there was no board in place.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, “Our ath­letes are los­ing ground. With­out sanc­tioned events, they (box­ers) can’t qual­i­fy, can’t be scout­ed, and can’t build mo­men­tum. We’ve al­ready lost one com­pe­ti­tion card, and two more are at risk. Time is run­ning out.”

The re­lease al­so said that with the board’s ab­sence, it dis­rupt­ed the train­ing and com­pet­i­tive­ness of Caribbean gold medal­lists such as light heavy­weight Je­re­mi­ah Thomas, ris­ing light­weight with a track record of Caribbean gold medals and Com­mon­wealth Games as­pi­ra­tions, Don­nell Phillip and su­per heavy­weight Olympian and world cham­pi­onship medal­list, aim­ing for a sec­ond Olympic ap­pear­ance, Nigel Paul, among many oth­ers.