Pres­i­dent of the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­BA) Ce­cil Forde has been se­lect­ed as an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Box­ing Con­fed­er­a­tion which is the In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion's (AI­BA's) con­ti­nen­tal body of the Amer­i­c­as branch. This an­nounce­ment was made at an AI­BA ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing held in Ot­tawa, Cana­da, on Feb­ru­ary 10.Forde was se­lect­ed by the mem­ber­ship of the re­gion and was con­grat­u­lat­ed by fel­low Caribbean ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Ja­maican Lar­ry Brown. The Amer­i­c­as con­sist of 42 coun­tries in­clud­ing Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Cana­da, the Caribbean, Cu­ba, Pe­ru and Paraguay. He re­places John Charles of Do­mini­ca.

Forde, who is the son of the late Bur­ton Forde, has held the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of TTA­BA for the past 12 years.His fa­ther was one of the all-time greats in lo­cal box­ing as a coach, man­ag­er, pro­mot­er and match­mak­er be­ing re­spon­si­ble for many of the top fight­ers from the 1950's to the 80's.His charges in­clud­ed house­hold names like John­ny De Peiza, Roy Har­ry, Fitzroy Guisep­pi, Claude Noel, Leslie Fredrick, Mat Don­avon and Michael Dray­ton.

A well-known fig­ure in the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al are­na of am­a­teur box­ing, Forde is well re­spect­ed amongst his peers and col­leagues.An elat­ed Forde said he wel­comed the new po­si­tion and is look­ing for­ward to a re­vamp­ing of box­ing. He has giv­en his com­mit­ment to work as­sid­u­ous­ly to re­build the sport at the Caribbean lev­el.While his fo­cus will be on the broad­er scale of the Caribbean, Forde has in­di­cat­ed that his goal is to have T&T box­ers at the 2016 Olympics.

He has a vi­sion to grad­u­ate the am­a­teur box­ers from one lev­el to the next, start­ing with the Ju­nior Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onships which takes place in T&T in Ju­ly."We will start with ju­niors who are 15 to 16 years. This year they will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete against some of the best am­a­teurs through­out the re­gion. This is their first big test."Next year, the Youth Olympic will take place and that will al­so be part of the prepa­ra­tion process. 2015 will al­so have oth­er Olympic qual­i­fiers and my goal is to have our box­ers well pre­pared for the Brazil Olympics in 2016. It is a process and an Olympic medal is the on­ly prize that eludes our box­ers."

Forde ex­plained that T&T box­ers have medalled at the oth­er cham­pi­onships and now the team is in­tent on bring­ing home some met­al from Brazil.He said they have suf­fi­cient time but must work ef­fec­tive­ly and all-round sup­port will be need­ed.He thanked AI­BA for grant­i­ng him the po­si­tion of an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber and said he will use those pow­ers to take box­ing to the high­est lev­el pos­si­ble.