​Five mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Box­ing Board will fi­nal­ly re­ceive their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment at 10 am this morn­ing.

​The ap­point­ment will take place at a sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny at the of­fice of the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs at Nicholas Tow­ers, Port-of-Spain. The pro­ceed­ings will be led by the Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, Phillip Watts, and will in­clude oth­er mem­bers of his staff.

​Guardian Me­dia Sports has learned that the new board will be led by chair­man Kirt Sin­nette, who is the on­ly for­mer box­er to make the tran­si­tion to lead a T&T box­ing board. The board al­so in­cludes an­oth­er for­mer fe­male box­er, Kim Quashie, as the vice chair­man. Quashie, known as “Bone Crush­er” in her prime for her dev­as­tat­ing at­tack, is joined by rug­by en­thu­si­ast and sports ad­min­is­tra­tor Kwanieze John, who has been reap­point­ed from the pre­vi­ous board. The oth­er mem­bers are Bryan Bas­deo and Hem­n­ra­jh Ram­per­sad.

The board’s ap­point­ment is a sigh of re­lief for the lo­cal box­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, as the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA) has had to post­pone at least eight box­ing cards ear­li­er this year due to the board’s non-ex­is­tence.

Sin­nette, who con­test­ed the Port-of-Spain South seat un­der the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) ban­ner in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions. In 1996, Sin­nette was the first-ever lo­cal box­er to rep­re­sent T&T at the Olympic Games. He was left out of a spot on the re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Board of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T, though he was one of the first to have been called. Sin­nette, con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, did not want to of­fer a com­ment, pre­fer­ring in­stead to wait un­til the in­stru­ments are hand­ed out.

In the ring, Sin­nette won a bronze medal in the men’s light mid­dleweight (71 kg) cat­e­go­ry at the 1995 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Mar del Pla­ta and al­so came in 17th po­si­tion at the Olympic Games in At­lanta.

Quashie, on the oth­er hand, closed her ca­reer with 10 bouts, in­clu­sive of six wins and four loss­es in the heavy­weight di­vi­sion.

News of the board’s pend­ing ap­point­ment drew im­me­di­ate re­spons­es from Ce­cil Forde, pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA), and Reynold Cox, the TT­BA trea­sur­er. Forde, a long-serv­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor, con­grat­u­lat­ed both Sin­nette and Quashie on their ap­point­ment, not­ing that it is good to see two known peo­ple in the sport.

“A lot is ex­pect­ed of them to take the sport from where it is now, es­pe­cial­ly pro­fes­sion­al box­ing. It was a long-an­tic­i­pat­ed wait for us in the box­ing fra­ter­ni­ty. Both Sin­nette and Quashie were suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sion­al box­ers. I think the box­ing as­so­ci­a­tion and fra­ter­ni­ty will be able to ex­hale now.

“We now stand ready to meet with them and the new board to dis­cuss the way for­ward for the sport,” Forde told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, Cox said he is hap­py the board will be ap­point­ed to­day.

“It has been months with­out a board, which was a hin­drance to the growth of the sport. Be­cause there was no board, no na­tion­al teams could have been se­lect­ed, be­cause to name a na­tion­al team, you have to have box-off, Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, etc, so it is very ex­cit­ing times for the sport in T&T right now,” Cox said.