With the Caribbean School Boys and Junior Championship imminent, the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) will resume its monthly Pepsi/Mike Parris U-16 preparatory competition tomorrow at the Andrew ‘Six Head’ Lewis gym.
This is according to a release disseminated to the media yesterday by the GBA.
The release stated that bell time is set for 13:00hrs and the competitions will be used ahead of the Caribbean School Boys and Junior Championship scheduled for August to identify the nation’s best prospects.
In the release, Technical Director of the GBA, Terrence Poole stated, “This is once again another event of the twice-monthly U-16 school boys and junior competition. The reason we are conducting these tournaments is that they serve as the primary preparation for the Caribbean School Boys Championship which is to be hosted in August.”
He added, “We are doing all this as part of our preparation to identify our best fighters. That is why we are having the event so frequently so that we can provide competition to the boxers. It’s very important for us to have this type of competition so that they will be ready for the Caribbean tournament.
Registration of fighters and the competing gyms will occur from 10:00hrs on competition day. The medical assessments will be conducted during that time.
Meanwhile, President of the GBA Steve Ninvalle said, “Our U-16 championship is the backbone of Guyana’s boxing continued and sustained dominance in the English-speaking Caribbean. This event which is married to our historic weekend training camps, forms the bedrock of our developmental thrust and streamlines and strengthens our transitionary protocols for the discipline which has seen evidentiary success.”
Ninvalle added, “Our emphasis will always be on our youth programmes, which have continued to form the architecture of the association’s developmental agenda. From infancy to the professional ranks, this age group remains a vital component of ensuring strategic and evolutionary continuity for our emerging talents and rising stars. The importance of this initiative cannot be understated.”
In 2022, approximately 16 editions of the U-16 competition were conducted by the GBA. The entity is programmed to surpass that number during the current calendar year. The resumption of the monthly programme also aligns with the GBA’s ongoing weekly training procedure for U-16 and senior pugilists at the same facility.
The aforesaid stratagem, which serves primarily as a high-performance structure to better equip pugilists for the rigors of international competition, is supervised and administered by the technical and experienced trident of National coach Lennox Daniels, Technical Director Poole, and Cuban coach Francisco Roldan.
