T&T’s top in­ter­na­tion­al box­er Nigel Paul heads in­to the ring to­day to open T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Chile.

He will face a chal­leng­ing start when he squares off against a fa­mil­iar foe in Olympian Cris­t­ian Sal­cedo Co­dazzi of Colom­bia in their round of 16 bout in the su­per heavy­weight cat­e­go­ry at the Cen­tre de En­tre­namien­to Olimpi­co in San­ti­a­go.

“Prepa­ra­tion was good. I’m ready to go out there and per­form. We fought a cou­ple of times. He knows me very well. I know him very well so it’s go­ing to be an ex­cel­lent and ex­cit­ing match,” said Paul, fol­low­ing a train­ing ses­sion yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports from the Box­er’s camp in San­ti­a­go on Wednes­day, Paul said, “I plan to go out there, put my best foot for­ward, and get the win to­mor­row (to­day) for T&T.”

Paul and Sal­cedo met at the pre­vi­ous Pan Am Games in Li­ma 2019 in Pe­ru in the quar­ter­fi­nal round. The Colom­bian won that clash and went on to win the sil­ver medal.

The 92 kg di­vi­sion, which is set to box off at 7 pm (6 pm T&T time), will see 11 box­ers bat­tling it for po­si­tions on the medal podi­um.

“I’m hop­ing to go out there and get the first win for T&T. Get the ball rolling for me and the TTO team. Wish me luck!” said 34-year-old Paul, who is al­so the 2021 World Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­list.

The win­ner will move on to face Marce­lo Nunez Spar­ling of Paraguay, who got a bye in­to the quar­ter­fi­nal round.

On Sat­ur­day, T&T’s An­gel George will open her cam­paign in the women’s 75 kg cat­e­go­ry against Athey­na Bay­lon of Pana­ma. A win for George will see her face Ecuador’s Ingrith Mal­dana­do Del­ga­do, who al­so got a bye, in the quar­ter­fi­nals. Twelve box­ers will com­pete in this group.

T&T’s oth­er women’s box­er Tian­na Guy will see ac­tion on Sun­day ver­sus Colom­bian Ang­ie Valdes Pana in the open­ing bout in the 60kg cat­e­go­ry for a place in the quar­ter­fi­nals set for Wednes­day.

The win­ner will face Krisandy Rios Oje­da of Venezuela af­ter re­ceiv­ing a bye in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies. The cat­e­go­ry has 12 box­ers.

Al­so on Sun­day in the first-af­ter­noon bout, Aaron Prince will be up against Cana­di­an Ju­nior Pe­ka Petan­qui in the men’s 71kg cat­e­go­ry, If Prince gets the win, he will face off against the win­ner be­tween Haiti’s Jack­son Dar­rius Howard and Venezue­lan Chris­tiann Jose Pala­cio Med­i­na in an ear­li­er match-up.

The day be­fore though, Al-Jaleel Johku kicks off his re­quest for a medal in the men’s 51kg cat­e­go­ry among 14 box­ers. Johku will take on an­oth­er Colom­bian Yu­ber­jen Mar­tinez Ri­vas in bout num­ber 29 at San­ti­a­go2023. A win for the T&T box­er will see him book a spot in the quar­ter­fi­nals card­ed for Tues­day (Oc­to­ber 24) against the win­ner be­tween Ale­jan­dro Claro Fiz of Cu­ba and Amer­i­can Roscoe Hill.

Ahead of yes­ter­day’s train­ing ses­sion, coach Reynold Cox was in a pos­i­tive mood as he be­lieves his box­ers are up to the chal­lenge with each of them aim­ing to progress to the next round in their re­spec­tive cat­e­gories fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s draw.

“I think it’s go­ing to be a very com­pet­i­tive Pan Amer­i­can Games. In terms of the op­po­nents, we know most of them we will be com­pet­ing against. We’ve been train­ing against them for the past three weeks or so in our train­ing camp in Bo­go­ta, Colom­bia so we have a good idea about who we are go­ing to meet at these Games,” said Cox.

The Pan Am Games is serv­ing as a qual­i­fi­er for the Olympic Games in Paris, France, next year in sev­er­al sports in­clud­ing box­ing.

“We have had a pret­ty good prepa­ra­tion lead­ing up to the Pan Am Games. It’s our first qual­i­fy­ing event and the team has been do­ing some pret­ty good train­ing so far,” added the sea­soned and ex­pe­ri­enced coach.

With all the box­ers ac­count­ed for, the oth­er mem­bers of the T&T con­tin­gent who ar­rived in San­ti­a­go were mem­bers of the 3x3 bas­ket­ball team that com­prised the Boyd twin broth­ers Ah­keel and Ah­keem, Mori­ba De Fa­tias and Chike Au­gus­tine along with coach Chris­tor­pher Jack­son Charles, and man­ag­er/train­er Wayne Samuel.

Al­so in Chile are the bad­minton play­ers Cheque­da De Boulet and Marc Reese Mar­cano, swim­mers Nikoli Black­man, Cherelle Thomp­son, and Zarek Wil­son, gym­nasts An­nalise New­man-Achee, and Jameel Ali and weightlifter: Karin Singh.

Cy­clists Nicholas Paul, Kwe­si Browne, Zion Puli­do, Ak­il Camp­bell, and Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez are ex­pect­ed to join the team to­day. Two-time Pan Am medal­list Te­niel Camp­bell with­drew ear­li­er this week, due to in­jury.

Yes­ter­day, base­ball start­ed com­pe­ti­tion at the Games which will run through No­vem­ber 5 with some 6,800 ath­letes from 41 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the Amer­i­c­as and the Caribbean com­pet­ing in 39 dif­fer­ent sport­ing dis­ci­plines.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny for San­ti­a­go 2023, which takes place to­mor­row at Chile’s Na­tion­al Sta­di­um will fea­ture some 5,000 artists.