WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Floyd Trum­pet, the man who took T&T box­er Nigel Paul to the Olympic Games in just 11 fights, is on his way to coach in the Cay­man Is­lands.

He signed a lu­cra­tive four-year deal that will take him to 2022 with an op­tion to ex­tend. His main re­spon­si­bil­i­ty will be to im­ple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme that will un­earth new tal­ent and fine-tune them for lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions.

Trum­pet, an ex-na­tion­al box­er, was ini­tial­ly asked to be the Cay­man Is­land's as­sis­tant coach to Nor­man Wil­son a cou­ple years ago, but with Wil­son de­part­ing re­cent­ly, box­ing of­fi­cials there were left search­ing for some­one to take their box­ers to the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan 2020.

Trum­pet told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of his doc­u­ments, he was lat­er en­gaged in an on­line in­ter­view where he fin­ished sec­ond to a coach from Great Britain, more than six months ago.

"It ap­pears the Cay­man Is­lands of­fi­cials are dis­sat­is­fied with the work be­ing done so far, so they have called on me to take over the job. It will re­quire a to­tal re­struc­tur­ing of the ex­ist­ing box­ing pro­gramme there to one that will in­cor­po­rate the schools, both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary, and the pri­vate gyms," Trum­pet said.

At the mo­ment, Trum­pet is await­ing ap­proval on his work per­mit to be­gin.

"All my pa­per­work was done and sub­mit­ted so when they are ready they will call me to arrange a time for me to start. I will like to get go­ing, how­ev­er, be­fore the start of the new year."

His ap­point­ment makes it a first for a na­tion­al box­ing coach, ply­ing his trade in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. His first re­al test will come at the AM­BC Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship at a date and venue to be de­ter­mined in April. The AM­BC Cham­pi­onship will be used as a qual­i­fi­er for the Pan Amer­i­can Games next year.

The Cay­man Is­lands, in spite of its con­stant sup­ply of box­ers for re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al box­ing tour­na­ments, are equipped with just one main box­ing gym in the cap­i­tal city, which has led to the pro­duc­tion of Brandy Barnes, the lone elite box­er on the is­land.

Trum­pet said he wants to qual­i­fy her for the Pan Am and bring new tal­ent to the fore. De­spite the ex­cite­ment of tak­ing up a new job in a for­eign land, how­ev­er, Trum­pet said he prefers to ply his trade in his na­tive T&T but has to be paid for it.

His short stint as the na­tion­al coach for the 2016 Olympic Games and be­yond, did not bring many fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits as he and his staff have had to go for many months with­out pay­ment of salaries.