A T&T ju­nior box­ing team that con­test­ed the 2023 Caribbean School Boys, Girls, Ju­niors and Youths Box­ing Cham­pi­onship in Guyana over the week­end, has been a ca­su­al­ty of the Caribbean Air­lines’ on­go­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

The team com­pris­es lit­tle Makieve Bellille who was vot­ed the best male school box­er.

The team was set to re­turn home yes­ter­day with four gold medals and six sil­ver from the cham­pi­onship but was left strand­ed at the air­port for hours on­Mon­day. They are hop­ing to get on a flight on Tues­day.

Head coach Vicky Boodram said they were con­firmed for a flight yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, but when they got to the air­port it was chaot­ic, as noth­ing was put in place.

“We are now hop­ing to get on a flight to­day (Tues­day) be­cause I want to get these young fight­ers back home. I am thank­ful that the Guyana Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion has ex­tend­ed all cour­te­sies to us.

“Be­cause of this, we could have gone back to the Brit­tany’s Ho­tel to stay,” Boodram ex­plained.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, some 39 pi­lots did not turn up for work, caus­ing thou­sands of peo­ple to be strand­ed at dif­fer­ent air­ports around the world. Caribbean Air­lines has since is­sued a re­lease giv­ing an as­sur­ance that all will be done to meet the needs of the af­fect­ed peo­ple.

The tour­na­ment, held over the week­end (Fri­day, Aug 18 to Sun­day, Aug 20) al­so saw the T&T team cop the over­all sec­ond-place fin­ish at the tour­na­ment. Gold medals were won by the quar­tet of Bellille (57kg School Boys 13-14yrs), Ja­mal Muhammed (40kg 11-12yrs School Boys), Rey­ha John- (48kg Ju­nior (fe­male), An­fer­ney Bap­tiste (60kg Youth).

The sil­ver medals, cour­tesy of sec­ond-place fin­ish­es, came from Ja­di­ah Blake (male) 66kg Ju­nior (15-16yrs), Paul Matthew Newal­lo (male) 70kg Ju­nior (15-16yrs), Ner­aj Ma­hadeosingh (male) 57kg Youth (17-18yrs), An­fer­ney Bap­tiste (male) 60kg Youth (17-18yrs), Mick­el Med­ica (male) 63.5kg Youth (17-18yrs) and Joshua Lewis (male) 80kg Youth (17-18yrs).

A re­lease is­sued from the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion on Mon­day con­grat­u­lat­ed the fight­ers for their courage and per­for­mance.

“These young box­ers put their hearts in­to these per­for­mances, by show­ing us what per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion bring, giv­ing blood, sweat, and tears in and out of the ring. They fought like true war­riors and I am so proud of every sin­gle one of them,” Boodram stat­ed in the re­lease.