Beijing Olympic Games boxing referee James Beckles convened the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association’s (GABA) training programme for referees, judges and interested persons yesterday at the National Gymnasium.
Beckles’ objective is to get local officials au fait with current International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) rules. Beckles, who last visited Guyana in 2007, said this programme will be a refresher course since most of the participants were in the last programme.
Beckles, 49, told media workers yesterday that there have been several changes in the rules of amateur boxing and his focus will be to ensure that officials are on par with these changes. This programme is also in keeping with the GABA’s programme to have all its officials upgraded.
The programme will run from January 26-30.
“The aim is to bring them (officials) up to AIBA level, which is the world level. You have one AIBA official and that is Romona Agard and it is about bringing the others up to her level. And she needs to sit the Level Two exams and probably bring her up to that level,” the Trinidadian pointed out.
Beckles said that there is need for more AIBA officials in the Caribbean, especially since he is the only Olympic referee in the region. He stated that it is difficult when Caribbean boxers go to competitions outside of the Caribbean, noting that many are not accustomed to international officiating.
However, Beckles has not yet been able to make an assessment of the amount of work that has to be done since he has not seen any tapes on local amateur bouts. According to Beckles there have been rule changes regarding the mouth guard and this will be one of the topics that will be discussed.
He noted that the mouth guard rule is stringent to the point that the first time it comes out a boxer can lose a point as opposed to officials being more lenient in the past. He said that it is a controversial rule but these are the changes that have been made.
Apart from that, Beckles said that the world governing body revamped its weight classes and local officials will be learning about this also. One of the changes was the discarding of the flyweight division in both women and men’s categories since last September. Further, Beckles said there also will be a focus on the scoring, which has been a “sore” point, not only in the region but around the world. The computerised scoring has replaced the Swiss scoring system, which Guyana uses at the moment. He said that the electronic scoring will be used on the Friday Night Fights card tomorrow at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
