By Emmerson Campbell
The Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) has chosen national amateur flyweight champion and road to London pugilist, Imran ‘Magic’ Khan as their boxer of the year 2011.
During an interview on Monday GABA’s president Steve Ninvalle said that Khan, who had an outstanding 2011, was the top choice by his executives.
Notable mention went to lightweight Stephon Gouveia and junior welterweight Bert Braithwaite.It was also disclose that GABA’s tournament coordinator, Terrence Poole, was named coach of the year.Honourable mention went to Seibert Blake and James Walcott. “Imran had a terrific year last year. He was very good. He won five of his seven fights. He also won gold and bronze medals at overseas tournaments.
‘We also selected Terrence Poole as coach of the year with honourable mention going to (Seibert) Blake and (James) Walcott,” Ninvalle told Stabroek Sport .
Poole, who is one of the national coaches on the association’s Road to London team, coached the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) team to victory at both the Novices and Intermediate tournaments. Ninvalle also stated that Khan is also a well-rounded individual and that his level of dedication and discipline to the sport of boxing and to life as a whole was highly commendable.
The ‘Magic’ man who copped a gold medal at the Ronald Wilson Memorial tournament in Barbados, a bronze medal at the ALBA Games in Venezuela and victories on Pro Am cards both locally and overseas was the most successful of all the amateur boxers and was selected as amateur boxer of the year.
The 19-year-old who was also selected to train in an Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA), training camp in Cardiff, Wales from February 18 to March 10 is also a candidate for junior sportsman of the year.
Meanwhile, Ninvalle mentioned that GABA received a monetary donation from the president of the Caribbean’s Promoters Association, Jason Fraser after Khan won the headline amateur bout Fraser promoted last month in Trinidad. Ninvalle emphasized that some of that money should go directly to Khan as he was the reason the association received the money in the first place.
“I told my executives that a portion of that money should go directly to Imran since he was the man that made the donation possible in the first place said Ninvalle.
“A lot of the times you have to make sure that it filters down to the people that matter, he matters, he has to go to Cardiff and that will assist him greatly to buy some of his vitamins and supplements and so forth,” he opined.
Ninvalle added that the names of the referee and the judge of the year will be announced subsequently.
