For­mer world box­ing cham­pi­on Ria Ram­nar­ine is call­ing on the guardians of box­ing to take note of the ab­sence of fe­male box­ers in the coun­try."Af­ter the foun­da­tion set by my­self and the late Giselle Sa­landy, it is un­for­tu­nate that there is a sig­nif­i­cant lack of women in the sport at this time.

Even the na­tion­al fe­male team is not en­cour­aged to con­tin­ue in the pur­suit of their box­ing goals sim­ply be­cause of the lack of fo­cus and op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed by the sport's cus­to­di­ans", said Ram­nar­ine.Cur­rent­ly Ram­nar­ine is the on­ly fe­male 3-Star AI­BA cer­ti­fied coach in the re­gion and has in­di­cat­ed that she is dis­ap­point­ed that women's box­ing seem to be a "thing of the past" in T&T.

Ex­cept for the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships and one lo­cal box­ing card which fea­tured the fe­male box­ers, there was no oth­er lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion for the women.

Ram­nar­ine not­ed that the few women in the sport lost in­ter­est be­cause of the lack of in­cen­tive."All the girls want­ed was to be able to put their train­ing to use. To box. To com­pete. Some of them spent time at the na­tion­al camp but re­turned to their homes and jobs af­ter some months when it was ev­i­dent that they were not be­ing giv­en the chance to com­pete. For ex­am­ple, Chimere Tay­lor has the skill to suc­ceed on the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, but with­out match prac­tice, she gains no ex­pe­ri­ence and as such, it is dif­fi­cult for her to cap­i­talise on her skills".

There are so few women in the sport in T&T that re­gion­al op­po­nents have to be flown in which makes it cost­ly to pro­mote the fe­male bouts.How­ev­er, Ram­nar­ine be­lieves that with the in­clu­sion of women box­ing in the Olympics, the ef­forts should be made to give the women box­ers a chance to ply their trade. She in­di­cat­ed that this year they failed at an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el but at­trib­uted this to the lack of ex­pe­ri­ence.

Hav­ing walked the road, al­beit that of a pro­fes­sion­al, Ram­nar­ine said it was very dif­fi­cult to main­tain a high lev­el of skill, com­mit­ment and mo­ti­va­tion with­out com­pe­ti­tion.She has called specif­i­cal­ly on Boxu Potts to ex­plain why there has been no fo­cus on the fe­male box­ers of late.Ram­nar­ine went on to say, "Mr Potts has been one of the pro­mot­ers of women's box­ing and has been rec­og­nized in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for his ef­forts.

I am ask­ing why he is now ab­sent from lob­by­ing for women's box­ing. He is the spe­cial ad­vi­sor to the Box­ing Board of Con­trol and I would have thought that he would have sim­ply ad­vised that the women box­ers should be fo­cused on as well.Hav­ing pro­mot­ed Sa­landy and my­self with great suc­cess, and al­though he is not ac­tu­al­ly a pro­mot­er nowa­days, I think his po­si­tion would al­low him to prop­er­ly ad­vise the Board that we have a chance at Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion if the women are giv­en the nec­es­sary com­pe­ti­tions and tools to pre­pare".

Not­ing the 2014 suc­cess of the Michael Alexan­der in the am­a­teur cir­cuit and Prince-Lee Isidore on the pro scene, Ram­nar­ine be­lieves that giv­en the chance, the women can suc­ceed al­so. Hav­ing been af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee to be part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Coach­ing En­rich­ment Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gram in the USA, Ram­nar­ine in­di­cat­ed that she is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a pro­gram to en­cour­age more young women and girls to par­tic­i­pate in the sport as part of her the­sis."Box­ing on the whole has been in a slum­ber. On­ly the likes of Alexan­der and Isidore have giv­en a shim­mer of hope and they too need as­sis­tance to con­tin­ue their suc­cess. I sin­cere­ly hope that the guardians of the sport can wake up be­fore we lose all hope", end­ed Ram­nar­ine.