The trio of Donnell Phillips, Jaden Castellano and Nigel Paul claimed three gold medals for T&T on the final day of the Caribbean Boxing Championships at the Beausejour Sports Centre in St Lucia on Sunday.
Their medals were added to the two gold medals won the day before by Makeieve Bellille and Jeremiah Thomas for a total of five gold medals, five silver, and three bronze medals, to earn the contingent in red, white, and black the overall second-place position behind Guyana.
President of the T&T Boxing Association Cecil Forde said he was generally pleased with the overall performance and medals won by the team.
“From here onwards we will focus on development for the future and strengthen the area we are weak in,” Forde explained.
Paul, a qualifier for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, made light work of Guadeloupe’s Malik Binet in the super heavyweight final contest, winning 5-0 on points.
Paul, only a little while ago, returned from injuries that plagued him for the past months.
Castellano later prevailed over Travis Inverary of Guyana for the elite 71 kg title.
The first round had hardly ended when the referee was called upon to stop the contest after Inverary was floored in the contest.
Donnell Phillip secured the country’s third gold medal on the night by beating Joel Williamson on points for the 63.5 kg title. Meanwhile, the quartet of Luke Teasdale, Angel George, Anthony Joseph, and Aaron Prince had to settle for silver medals.
Teasdale, who had an impressive performance on the opening night of the championships, went down to Leon Loudat of Antigua and Barbuda by split decision in the 75 kg fight.
Later, George was humbled by Abiola Jackman of Guyana in the 80+kg contest, and Anthony Joseph, who garnered much-needed experience at the International Boxing Association Men’s World Boxing Championships in Uzbekistan in 2023, could not use it to his advantage as he was beaten by Keevin Allicock of Guyana on points.
Also, Aaron Prince, the country’s 2020 Tokyo, Japan Olympic qualifier, was a shadow of himself against Desmond Amsterdam of Guyana. The Guyanese outpunched his opponent in the elite 75 kg title fight to confine T&T to yet another defeat on the night.
According to Forde, after the championships, his charges will now turn their attention to the Continental Championships, which will be for elite fighters only in July in Panama.
This event will be staged by World Boxing, the new organisation given the right to oversee amateur boxing across the globe.
The amateur boxing boss said they are now in the process of registering with World Boxing to contest the championships.