WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

The fu­ner­al ser­vice for the coun­try's first world ti­tle box­er Claude Noel will take place Sat­ur­day at 4 pm at the Chapel of Allen's Fu­ner­al Home in Ari­ma. He will then be cre­mat­ed soon af­ter.

Noel, 74, died on May 21 at the Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal af­ter a long bat­tle with di­a­betes. The fu­ner­al ser­vice is ex­pect­ed to bring out the en­tire box­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, some of whom boxed with him dur­ing his for­ma­tive years at the Boys In­dus­tri­al Home in Diego Mar­tin.

His close friends Michael Paul, a for­mer na­tion­al undis­put­ed cham­pi­on in the light heavy­weight di­vi­sion will be there, along with Michael Dray­ton, an­oth­er for­mer cham­pi­on, and Ralph Pe­terkin, all of whom al­so boxed with him at the Wood­brook Box­ing Gym.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Ce­cil Forde, who man­ages am­a­teur box­ing in T&T is al­so ex­pect­ed to be present, as well as Bar­ry Ish­mael, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol, and his mem­bers.

Noel's name be­came a house­hold one in 1981 when he de­feat­ed Mex­i­can Rodol­fo Gon­za­les for the WBA ti­tle in At­lantic City, New Jer­sey on points. He won the fight 145-140, 145-141, 144-141.

Due to his tri­umph, the gov­ern­ment named the high­way in his na­tive To­ba­go af­ter him.

His first de­fence of the ti­tle was on De­cem­ber 5, 1981, against USA chal­lenger and late re­place­ment, Ar­turo Frias. The Amer­i­can dom­i­nat­ed the fight, which took place in Las Ve­gas, Neva­da, be­fore knock­ing Noel out in the eighth round.