Cori Baynes

Evan Ralph is the new stick-fight­ing "King of the Rock." Ralph, of the Tal­paro Gayelle, got the bet­ter of six oth­er op­po­nents to cap­ture first place ho­n­ours which car­ried with it a $13,000 purse.

Sec­ond place and $8,500 went to the 2008 cham­pi­on An­tho­ny Bineal from the Long­denville Gayelle while the $5,500 third prize went to Nigel Jones of Gran Cou­va. The Na­tion­al Stick-fight­ing cham­pi­onships, or­gan­ised by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Re­gion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, was held be­fore a large crowd at Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre, on Wednes­day night.

?LEFT: This spec­ta­tor had to seek med­ical at­ten­tion af­ter he was struck by a bois which slipped out of the hand of stick­man Evon Ralph dur­ing one of the fights.

The event, which start­ed short­ly af­ter 8 pm, al­so fea­tured bouts be­tween the Tal­paro, Long­denville, Princes Town and Gran Chemin gayelles for the ti­tle of cham­pi­on gayelle. Three mem­bers of each gayelle squared off against each oth­er in in­di­vid­ual three-minute com­pe­ti­tion to de­cide which gayelle was more su­pe­ri­or. The first bat­tle was be­tween mem­bers of the Long­denville and Gran Chemin gayelles while the oth­er fea­tured Tal­paro and Princes Town.

Mem­bers of the Long­denville Gayelle cel­e­brate af­ter cap­tur­ing $16,000 at Wednes­day night's Na­tion­al Stick­fight­ing Cham­pi­onships.

The ti­tle, which car­ried with it $16,000, was won by the Long­denville gayelle in a hard-fought bat­tle with mem­bers of Tal­paro. Tal­paro took the sec­ond prize of $8,500 while the Princes Town gayelle copped the $5,500 third prize.