WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s box­ing team came away with two gold medals and a sil­ver at the end of Sat­ur­day night’s sec­ond-day ac­tion of the Caribbean Box­ing Cham­pi­onships at the Beause­jour Sports Cen­tre in St Lu­cia.

Makieve Bellille claimed the first gold medal for T&T by de­feat­ing Ervin Thomas of St Lu­cia on points in the 57kg con­test. His vic­to­ry was the cul­mi­na­tion of the promise he showed as a ju­nior in 2023 when he was vot­ed the "Best Male Box­er" of the 2023 Caribbean School Boys, Girls, Ju­niors and Youths Box­ing Cham­pi­onship in Guyana.

The oth­er gold medal for T&T came via the same route (on points) when Je­re­mi­ah Thomas took on home­town favourite Kyle Mar­celle in an 80-86kg fi­nal bout.

Na­tion­al coach Vic­ki Boodram said she was not sur­prised by the achieve­ments of her charges, say­ing Bellille, al­though he is a ju­nior fight­er, and Je­re­mi­ah Thomas an Elite box­er, both are ex­pe­ri­enced box­ers in the sport.

“Both were able to out­smart and out­box­er their op­po­nents quite eas­i­ly to win gold medals,” said Boodram.

Thomas was among a few T&T fight­ers, who per­formed with cred­it at the In­ter­na­tion­al Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Men’s World Box­ing Cham­pi­onships in Uzbek­istan when he de­feat­ed An­golan Adri­ano Kiana in his open­ing 80-86kg bout. All judges scored in his favour. T&T’s Don­nel Phillip was al­so vic­to­ri­ous at the World Cham­pi­onships as he bet­tered Brazil­ian Yuri Dos­reis in the 60-63.5kg light wel­ter­weight cat­e­go­ry; Aaron Prince, com­pet­ing in the 67-71kg light mid­dleweight, al­so bat­tled five rounds and won 4-1 against Al­ban­ian De­nis Nur­ja; and on the 46-48kg, T&T box­er Or­te­ga Jokhu de­feat­ed Azer­bai­jan’s Tur­al Sariyev 4-1.

On Sat­ur­day, the oth­er medal for T&T came from Dar­nell Sinaswee who was beat­en in the 60-63.5kg fi­nal by Sime­on Haymer of Guyana on points and had to set­tle for the run­ner-up medal.

Boodram said, “Sinaswee put up an ex­cep­tion­al fight, but his op­po­nent was phys­i­cal­ly big­ger and stronger than him, and he was able to use this to his ad­van­tage. Sinaswee even­tu­al­ly lost the bout on points but gave a good per­for­mance.”

Last night, sev­en T&T fight­ers were sched­uled to be in­volved in ti­tle bouts, in­clud­ing Nigel Paul, who has en­tered the sphere of box­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion as the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TT­BA) pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, was ex­pect­ed to face Ma­lik Bi­net of Guade­loupe in the fi­nal of the su­per heavy­weight con­test.

Al­so ex­pect­ed to en­ter the ring was Luke Teas­dale against Leon Lou­dat of An­tigua & Bar­bu­da in the youth 75kg fi­nal; Phillip ver­sus Joel Williamson of Guyana (63.5kg fi­nal); An­gel George up against Abi­o­la Jack­man of Guyana (elite women’s 80+kg fi­nal); Jaden Castel­lano ver­sus Travis In­ver­ary of Guyana (elite 71kg fi­nal); An­tho­ny Joseph against Kee­van Al­lic­ock of Guyana (elite 57kg fi­nal); and Prince ver­sus Desmond Am­s­ter­dam of Guyana (elite 75kg fi­nal).