WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe has been the tar­get of sev­er­al des­per­ate calls by box­ing stake­hold­ers for the T&T Box­ing Board to be ap­point­ed.

Among the stake­hold­ers is a for­mer na­tion­al box­er, now turn coach, Leslie “Tiger” Stew­art, a for­mer World Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (WBA) light heavy­weight cham­pi­on who de­feat­ed Mar­vin John­son by TKO (tech­ni­cal knock­out) in 1987.

He has been joined by an­oth­er ex-box­er Ul­ric John­son, Kirt “The Tech­ni­cian” Sin­nette, the man who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 1996 Olympic Games and boasts of a record of 22 wins, three loss­es and no drawn match­es from a to­tal of 25 fights; and Reynold Cox, the cur­rent coach/man­ag­er of the T&T box­ing team which is cur­rent­ly at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land.

The sport has been with­out a box­ing board since April 16 of this year when the term ex­pired. The call by the four for­mer box­ers comes as noth­ing can hap­pen in the sport.

The board is a reg­u­la­to­ry body which plunges in­to ac­tion when sanc­tions are need­ed for fights to take place, for the is­su­ing of med­icals ahead of bouts and for the grant­i­ng of li­cens­es, among many oth­er ar­eas.

Cud­joe when quizzed re­cent­ly about the mat­ter said there was a need for a re­place­ment for Cleopa­tra Borel, one of the board mem­bers who could no longer serve.

Apart from her, the oth­er mem­bers are Bar­ry Ish­mael, the then chair­man and or­di­nary mem­bers Ter­ry Young, De Rochelle Mo­hammed and Christophe Braith­waite, who re­placed Symon De No­bri­ga in 2020 as he con­test­ed the Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

The for­mer box­ers said they need the board to be ap­point­ed now for the sport to move for­ward.

LESLIE STEW­ART

Stew­art in his ac­count on Ju­ly 27 said: “When will am­a­teur box­ing get go­ing again, host­ing the games next year is good, but we are do­ing an in­jus­tice to our young box­ers who are not get­ting the op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain and de­vel­op in the ring dur­ing a re­al con­test.

“No Box­ing Board halfway through the year, our youths are not de­vel­op­ing. The main part of a box­er’s de­vel­op­ment is an ac­tu­al con­test, so please con­vey this to those who are re­spon­si­ble for the progress and bet­ter­ment of the sport.”

UL­RIC JOHN­SON

John­son in an­oth­er ac­count said: “When will the Box­ing Board be re­con­vened?

“This is the ques­tion I am ask­ing, it’s been well over two years since our young and up­com­ing box­ers have been al­lowed to show­case their tal­ents, and they are dis­sat­is­fied with the in­ac­tiv­i­ty of box­ing tour­na­ments. Now that the covid-19 re­stric­tions have been eased some­what and box­ing cards can be held, there is no board so that box­ing bouts can be held for young and up­com­ing box­ers to rep­re­sent, not on­ly their gyms but most im­por­tant­ly T&T.

“In the com­ing year, there will be a num­ber of box­ing events tak­ing place both lo­cal­ly and abroad where most of our ath­letes will be par­tic­i­pat­ing. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, due to very lit­tle or no ring ex­pe­ri­ence, they will be placed at a dis­ad­van­tage in mak­ing a good or great im­pres­sion.

“I am plead­ing to the pow­ers that be, that mea­sures be tak­en to en­sure that ad­e­quate and knowl­edge­able per­sons be in­sti­tut­ed as soon as pos­si­ble to form a new and ef­fec­tive Box­ing Board so that our box­ers can get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vance them­selves in our coun­try and the box­ing world.”

KIRT SIN­NETTE

“Madam Sports Min­is­ter, I am a for­mer na­tion­al box­er who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Caribbean Games, CAC Games, Pan Amer­i­can Games, Com­mon­wealth Games and the Olympic Games. I am the na­tion­al ju­nior coach for T&T and for me to rep­re­sent my coun­try with con­fi­dence and pride the box­ing board would have had to be in place.

“T&T is about to host the Ju­nior Com­mon­wealth Games next year and live com­pe­ti­tion will be part of their prepa­ra­tion, which can­not take place with­out a box­ing board. I am kind­ly ask­ing you to please ap­point the board for our box­ers to com­pete at events in T&T.”

Ac­cord­ing to Cox: “It is very dif­fi­cult for us at the mo­ment, be­cause we still for two years, haven’t had re­al com­pe­ti­tion in T&T and it is very dif­fi­cult for us to go for­ward.

“It’s dif­fi­cult for us to rat­i­fy na­tion­al teams, we had no Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships since 2019, so that means that na­tion­al teams have been in place for two years and it’s not good or healthy go­ing for­ward to take a team in­to Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion in 2023 with­out a na­tion­al cham­pi­onship.

The cal­en­dar of events for box­ing for the rest of the year and next (2022/2023) has been put out and it in­cludes:

1 The Caribbean school­Boys/Girls/Jrs George­town, Guyana,

2 Caribbean Elite/Youth Cham­pi­onship,

3 CAC Qual­i­fi­er 2023,

4 CAC Games 2023,

5 Pan Amer­i­can Games Qual­i­fi­er 2023,

6 Pan Amer­i­can Games 2023,

7 School­Boys/Girls/Jrs Caribbean Cham­pi­onship 2023 and the

8 Olympic Games Qual­i­fiers.