Territorial boxing associations in dire straits

Mar 16, 2014 Sports

Barbados boxing president mulls creative initiatives

By Michael Benjamin
In association with the Loft nightclub
Despite the high level of confidence placed in them, and after expending hundreds of thousands of dollars in their

Anthony Jones

preparations, Guyanese boxers failed to pass the qualifying rounds of the London 2012 Olympics staged during the qualifiers in Brazil that year.
Undeterred, the executives of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) have signaled an intention of attending the Brazil 2016 Olympics and have intensified efforts to provide as much international exposure for local pugilists. Consequently, the recent upsurge in activity has witnessed local boxers pitting their skills against their Caribbean counterparts as administers of the GBA attempt to increase their chances of procuring lucrative medals at the imminent 2016 Brazil Olympiad.
Consequently, local boxers were matched against their Caribbean counterparts from Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia in a tri-nation, three nights tournament staged in Guyana, February last. They then traveled to Barbados for a one night goodwill tournament on March 8.
Further, even as this article is being written, three local boxers, Dennis Thomas, Theresa London and Eon Bancroft, are in Santiago, Chile battling for honours in the South American Games and within the next two weeks, local pugilists would be heading for St Lucia to participate in a 3 nights Goodwill tournament organized by the St Lucia boxing authorities.
However, despite this hive of activity among the Caricom nations, all is not well on the boxing front and President of the Barbados Amateur Boxing Association, Anthony Jones, feels that the time has come for territorial associations to unite towards a common cause if they are to see improvement among Caricom nationals at high profiled tournaments.
Mr. Jones spoke to Kaieteur Sport at the finals of the two days Horace Phillips Memorial Boxing Tournament at the Springer Memorial School, Barbados, March 8 last and remains adamant that the fortunes of Caribbean pugilists would only be improved when the territorial associations lock horns towards one cause. Despite his prognosis, the Barbados Boxing Association President is hardly optimistic and adamantly proclaimed that “the Caribbean people seem not to love their own.”
“There is a need for Caribbean integration and while this view has been touted before it seems that we are only observing this concept in the breach,” lamented Mr. Jones. He also said that behavior of this nature is responsible for the poor showing and meagre returns of Caribbean representatives at international games.

President of St Lucia Boxing Association David ‘Shakes’ Christopher

He noted that other than the Michael Parris bronze medal feat in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, no other Caricom boxer has been able to break the jinx. He further said that the cost factor is another variable that precludes boxing administrators in the region from effectively addressing their mandates even as he noted the laissez-faire disposition of governments in the region in promoting the sport. “We are operating on a shoestring budget and sadly, fail to attract meaningful funding from the (Barbados) government or the corporate community,” lamented Mr. Jones.
He further explained that his executives are forced to dig into their pockets to ensure that the boxers remain active. “We do receive a little assistance from the Barbados Olympic Association but though such support is welcomed, even that proves to be inadequate,” bemoaned Mr. Jones.
The aggrieved Bajan official said that after a survey was conducted in Barbados two years ago, boxing officials decided to host a boxing card among the territorial members and to simultaneously plan a symposium to ventilate strategies to correct the many anomalies plaguing the sport. He said that eleven countries, including Guyana, attended the forum, at the end of which, a motion was moved to examine ways of reviving boxing in the region. “That is as far as we got because the members returned to their respective countries and nothing further was done to promote the idea,” Mr. Jones explained.
Despite such debilitating challenges Mr. Jones said that his executives have been implementing ways of counteracting these grave difficulties and the just concluded Horace Phillips Memorial tournament was just one of the many initiatives Barbados boxing authorities have implemented to keep their boxers occupied. “Barbadian boxers have not competed in international tournaments for the last five years and have only competed across the border in a goodwill tournament in Trinidad and Tobago last year,” Mr. Jones explained. Notwithstanding, he said that over the years, his organization has hosted boxers from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Lucia and Martinique just to ensure that Bajan boxers are kept active. “On all those occasions the bulk of funding came out of our pockets and when you take into consideration that we hardly get support from the government and business community you will understand the challenges we face,” bemoaned Mr. Jones.
Determined to improve the lot of boxers in the Caribbean, Mr. Jones said that he attempted to strengthen the Caribbean Amateur Boxing Association (CABA) but was given the thumbs down by officials of the parent body, the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA). Mr. Jones said that after disbanding the entity, AIBA did an about turn and said that permission would be granted to reenact the entity provided that CABA officials were prepared to meet the costs and criteria. “We were being asked to foot an astronomical bill and even before that, we were required to engage in a bidding process among Caribbean countries,’ explained the Barbados boxing president. He said that upon closer examination no Caribbean country could have conformed to such draconian criterion and so the CABA became defunct.
How then could Caribbean boxing entities extricate themselves from this conundrum? “We will just have to return to the old strategies where we as a Caricom body will have to pool our resources and organize domestic tournaments while hoping that our boxers garner valuable activity for bigger engagements,” suggested Mr. Jones.
He said that his executive is currently preparing local boxers for three important engagements; the Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC), the Commonwealth Games and the World Youth Championships. “It is the best we could do under the circumstances but it is my hope that a more concerted effort is made towards a unified approach at the Caricom level,” he said.