The T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion has an­nounced a resur­gence and strate­gic path to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los An­ge­les, Unit­ed States. It in­cludes the stag­ing of the Na­tion­al Box­ing Cham­pi­onships from Jan­u­ary 28 to Feb­ru­ary 1, 2026.

The cham­pi­onships will take place at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (SRISA) in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do.

The coun­try’s na­tion­al team, com­pris­ing Don­nell Phillips, Ab­dul Tay­lor, and An­tho­ny Joseph, who will be among a team of six, will par­tic­i­pate in the event with the aim of get­ting much-need­ed prac­tice ahead of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games Qual­i­fiers in Mex­i­co from March 10-23.

Reynold Cox, a mem­ber of the TT­BA ex­ec­u­tive, said a team of 12 box­ers will be sub­mit­ted to the Pan Amer­i­can Box­ing Fed­er­a­tion for the CAC Games by Jan­u­ary 20. “Though a team of six will be tak­en to the qual­i­fiers, we will be sub­mit­ting about 12 names, just in case of in­juries or any un­want­ed sit­u­a­tion,” Cox told Guardian Me­dia Sports Wednes­day.

The CAC Games are sched­uled to take place in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in Ju­ly.

The TT­BA, in a re­lease, re­vealed that af­ter a chal­leng­ing sev­en-month pe­ri­od of ad­min­is­tra­tive tran­si­tion and in­ter­nal hur­dles, the sport is of­fi­cial­ly back on track. Fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of a new Box­ing Board of Con­trol last year, cou­pled with a se­ries of suc­cess­ful in­ter­na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions, the As­so­ci­a­tion has shift­ed its fo­cus back to the ring and the de­vel­op­ment of its ath­letes.

Pres­i­dent Ce­cil Forde is breath­ing a sigh of re­lief af­ter more than five box­ing cards had to be can­celled due to the de­lay in the ap­point­ment of a box­ing board which took more than six months to be in­stalled af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice on April 28, 2025.

Forde said, “​With the ap­point­ment of Kirt Sin­nette as chair­man of the Box­ing Board of Con­trol on No­vem­ber 4, the sport has seen an im­me­di­ate re­vival. On ​No­vem­ber 29, the Gold­en Fist Box­ing Gym host­ed a suc­cess­ful Pro-Am card fea­tur­ing a win­ning de­but by An­tho­ny “Shawn” Joseph. And on ​De­cem­ber 13, a “Trinidad vs To­ba­go” card show­cased the tal­ent of Kirsten Man­swell and the strength of the sis­ter isle.”

From Jan­u­ary 28 to Feb­ru­ary 1, the sport will con­tin­ue with the Na­tion­al Box­ing Cham­pi­onships.

Forde ex­plained they are mov­ing past the agony and des­per­a­tion of the last few months. “With our Olympic path­way se­cured and a func­tion­ing Board of Con­trol in place, our fo­cus is now en­tire­ly on the box­ers, the coach­es, and the fans who make this sport great.”

Forde cat­e­gorised his coun­try’s plans in the fol­low­ing way: ​

Nav­i­gat­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive hur­dles

​

”The manda­to­ry sev­en-month wait for the ap­point­ment of a new Box­ing Board of Con­trol—a re­quire­ment un­der the Box­ing Act for grant­i­ng con­test per­mits—re­sult­ed in the can­cel­la­tion or post­pone­ment of six ma­jor events. This in­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­rupt­ed the strate­gic plan­ning for our 2028 Olympic path­way and damp­ened the mo­men­tum of lo­cal gyms and clubs. ​De­spite these set­backs, the TT­BA re­mained com­mit­ted to our ath­letes. Week­ly train­ing and spar­ring ses­sions for school­boys, ju­niors, and youth box­ers were main­tained to en­sure fit­ness and fo­cus re­mained at peak lev­els.”

​In­ter­nal in­tegri­ty
and le­gal up­dates

​”The As­so­ci­a­tion re­cent­ly faced un­prece­dent­ed in­ter­nal chal­lenges, in­clud­ing a “vi­cious at­tack” ini­ti­at­ed by a small group of non-fi­nan­cial mem­bers and two ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers seek­ing to re­move the cur­rent lead­er­ship. While the TT­BA agreed to hold fresh elec­tions to sat­is­fy all par­ties, a last-minute court in­junc­tion filed by these in­di­vid­u­als has put the elec­tion on hold pend­ing a ju­di­cial judg­ment.

“​Re­gard­less of these le­gal pro­ceed­ings, the core ex­ec­u­tive team—com­pris­ing the Pres­i­dent, Vice Pres­i­dent, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, and Trea­sur­er—con­tin­ues to man­age the As­so­ci­a­tion’s busi­ness with full trans­paren­cy and ded­i­ca­tion.”