By Emmerson Campbell
Imran ‘Magic’ Khan and his teammates continued their march on the road to the 2102 London Olympics Games, turning in impressive performances at the inaugural Ronald Wilson Memorial tournament which ended Saturday night in Barbados.
The three day tournament saw four of the six-member Guyana contingent returning with medals.
Ron Smith (Welterweight elite) and Khan (Bantamweight elite) each returned with gold medals while Richard Williamson (Flyweight elite) and Delon Charles (Bantamweight novice) copped silver.
Khan’s other teammates; Laured Stewart (Welterweight novice) and the lone female Rowena David (Featherweight) were disqualified.
Stewart was so dominant in his first against Anthony Carter of Aruba that a protest was lodged.
It was the contention that Stewart was too advanced to be a novice.
The protest was upheld and subsequently the Forgotten Youth Foundation (FYF) product was disqualified from the tournament.
David knocked out her first opponent Jamel Billingy of Trinidad but infringed the rules of amateur boxing and lost via disqualification in her finals bout with Barbadian Jenny Benedict.
Khan followed up his ALBA Games bronze medal performance by simply working his magic on his St Lucian opponent.
According to coach of the team, Terrence Poole the ‘Magic’ man was his awe inspiring self simply working his magic, dominating Travis Maynard from the sound of the bell until the referee stopped the carnage in the second round.
“Khan was himself, he was all magic that the entire Barbadian jury and officials all of them looking around they wanted to know where he came from.
“The first round Magic already had 15 points up on his opponent and things like that don’t happen in amateur boxing, it was punches non stop,” Poole recounted.
Williamson won his first bout on points against Ashad Fabien of Trinidad and but lost a close match up with Barbadian Ricardo Blackman in the final.
In his first bout, Smith punished Bajan Ronald Als throughout their brief encounter until the referee had seen enough and stopped the contest in the second round. In the final he continued where he left off and outpointed Lavel Nurse of Trinidad on his way to lifting the gold medal.
Charles stopped his first opponent, Raenal Walters of St Maarten in the second round. However, in his finals bout with Tafari Ebanks from the Cayman Islands he was not as fortunate. After the fight the contest was tied at nine to nine, but a computerized formula broke the tie breaker awarding Ebanks the gold medal.
Poole reiterated that the trip was successful and the exposure served as good preparation for London.
“The trip was a plus for us especially for the boxers on the road to London it was a good little preparation for them, the exposure did them well, and the tournament was highly successful because if they had allowed Laured to fight was another gold if Rowena didn’t get disqualified at least she would have gotten a silver so it was very successful.”
Poole also highlighted that Champions of Champions tournament will close off the year for the amateur boxers.
“We’re supposed to have the Champion of Champions on the 20th at the Sports Hall so that would be the next big tournament for the amateur boxers.
The trip was made possible by former president Bharrat Jagdeo, after he funded the team to the tune of two million dollars.
Keith Campbell, Ramona Agard, Lennox Daniels and Poole were the officials for the team. Poole served as coach, Campbell and Agard served as referees and judges while the team was managed by Daniels.
The competition attracted 10 other Caribbean nations, including host Barbados.
