The region’s premier amateur middleweights, Arthur Langelier of St Lucia and Guyana’s Desmond ‘Dynamite’ Amsterdam are once again on a collision course.
According to President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA), Steve Ninvalle, the two standout pugilists will have a rematch in 15 days when the Patrick Forde Memorial Tournament is staged at the National Gymnasium.
Amsterdam, gold medalist at the Caribbean Boxing Championships in December, defeated the St Lucian in an exciting points win in the final of the weight class bout. Langelier gave ‘Dynamite’ his toughest test at the event, even stunning him with an eight-count.
The St Lucian is confident that he can spring an upset of the highly admired GDF standout who was promoted to Substantive Corporal by Chief of Staff, Patrick West shortly after his victory.
During the inaugural fixture, Guyana hosted St Lucia and Suriname.
This year, Ninvalle disclosed that “Trinidad, St Lucia and Suriname are billed to compete so far.”
The card is scheduled to have in excess of 15 fights.
Ninvalle added that he expects to have all the pivotal divisions on the card namely the middleweight, lightweight, bantamweight, junior welterweight and light heavyweight classes.
“Those are the divisions that we did exceptionally well in at the Caribbean Championships, so we will be pushing for our guys in those divisions to get some much needed competition leading up to Pan Am.”
The Patrick Forde Memorial Tournament which is a collaborative effort involving the GBA and Alford McDonald was birthed following the success of the Mike Parris U-16, the Andrew Lewis National Novices, the Lennox Blackmore National Intermediate and the Terrence Ali National Open.
Ninvalle added:“We are also looking at honouring Winfield Braithwaite.”
Braithwaite won a gold medal at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, in the light-welterweight division.
