President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) Steve Ninvalle says that 2022 has been an historic year for the association even as it continues to forge ahead with groundbreaking initiatives at home and in the region.
According to Ninvalle, amateur boxing was facing a knockout at the hands of the coronavirus pandemic but bounced back off the canvas to have one of its more successful years yet.
“The year 2022 has been a very rewarding year for us, rewarding in the sense that we were able to bounce back after COVID-19,” he told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview.
“COVID 19 would have put us down for the count since 2019. In 2020, we had no competitions and there were no competitions in 2021 either. So 2022, we would have bounced back and we were able to hold all three statutory competitions for the year,” he disclosed.
Some of the competitions held were the Novices and Intermediate Championships, the juniors and schoolboys tournaments, the Winfield Braithwaite Youth and Junior Championships and the Terrence Ali National Open Championships which closed off the GBA activities for the year.
There was also an international schoolboys and juniors tournament which was held in Guyana.
Ninvalle said apart from the numerous tournaments held locally, his executive was able to send boxers to a number of international competitions including the AMBC championships, the Commonwealth Games and the South American Games.
“We were able to send our boxers out to several international competitions and we would have had Desmond Amsterdam coming back with two bronze medals. He would have been the first Guyanese boxer to earn a financial reward from fighting overseas when he took part in the AMBC championships and he won a bronze medal.
With that, we’re looking forward to 2023 with much more enthusiasm. There are a number of international tournaments that our boxers will have to be at starting at one in Morocco next month which is January. We have the female World Championships, we have the male World Championships which will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and we expect to have the return of our Cuban coach, Mr. Francisco Roldan. That, of course, will rely on how much resources we have.”
Historic incentives
At the recent Terrence Ali national Open championships the GBA became the first country in the region to reward its amateur boxers with financial incentives for winning national titles.
“I think that as I said in the ring it is historic, it is significant. Also, it is the first time that any country in the Caribbean had financially rewarded their amateur boxers,” said Ninvalle.
“Guyana has always been in the vanguard, we’ve always been in the front as it relates to amateur boxing within CARICOM and we’re glad to continue that trend by initiating and organizing these financial rewards. It will not end here. Those rewards will increase and will improve with time. This is our first time and your first step is never your best step, your first step gets you started. So we’re glad from the position of the executive of the Guyana Boxing Association that we could have started this and I do think it will transcend across the Caribbean,” he declared.
Following suit
Following the GBA’s record breaking initiative, several regional associations have stated their intentions of following the example set by the GBA.
“As you would have seen more than five Caribbean presidents say that they are going to follow suit which includes The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Lucia and Suriname, just to name a few.
Trinidad has already said that come next year this is the way they are going and just like we’ve started with our schoolboys and juniors tournament which now encompasses the entire Caribbean, we’ve started with the financial rewards. So this is something I applaud, this is something that has been applauded by each and every boxer and each and every coach. There is no one in the boxing fraternity that will frown, or who have frowned on what we’ve done, said Ninvalle.
Resting one one’s laurels
Though they have taken the lead in a number of initiatives as it relates to boxing in the region, Ninvalle and his executive are not content to sit on their laurels as according to the GBA president, who is this country’s Director of Sport, there still work to be done.
“There’s always room for improvement regardless of what you do. Perfection is an illusion that we pursue it is never attained because there is never perfection in anything that we do. There’s always things that we can improve on so as an executive, we will keep meeting and we will keep engaging with the other stakeholders, the referee/judges, the coaches, the boxers too, in order to make it as airtight as possible. Whether we may be able to do that in a year or two or even three, that’s left to be seen because the elephant in the room is the resources that you have and we have to make sure that we get as much resources so that we can lend as much support to the stakeholders,” he said.
.Our main focus remain on our juniors, our schoolboys, our youth programme. We hope to see a larger influx of fighters, young fighters, because they will have to be groomed into becoming elite fighters
Also seeing improvements in our referee/judges department and the coaches department and when we say improvement we mean much for referee/judges and coaches being available for the sport.
