The coun­try’s first Sports Med­i­cine Prac­ti­tion­er and di­rec­tor of the World Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (WBA) Dr Calvin In­als­ingh, qui­et­ly passed away at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day. He was 86. He leaves to mourn his chil­dren Shiv­ana, Avinash, Davina, and his wife Ma­ri­na.

In­als­ingh, a fa­mil­iar face on the in­ter­na­tion­al box­ing and sports cir­cuits, blazed a path for this coun­try’s top in­ter­na­tion­al box­ers, Claude Noel and Leslie “Tiger” Stew­art, while he served as chair­man of the TT Box­ing Board of Con­trol al­so sup­port­ing lo­cal of­fi­cials for in­ter­na­tion­al World Ti­tle as­sign­ments.

The well-re­spect­ed sports doc­tor was recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for his pi­o­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of the Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram for Ring­side Physi­cians with the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Sports Med­i­cine, by the Glob­al As­so­ci­a­tion of the Ring­side Physi­cians where he al­so served as di­rec­tor and named emer­i­tus. His list of ac­co­lades glob­al­ly in the box­ing and sport­ing world is end­less with­in the three decades of serv­ing sports med­i­cine at its high­est lev­els.

In­als­ingh al­so set the stan­dards for sports med­i­cine lo­cal­ly hav­ing served re­peat­ed­ly as the med­ical prac­ti­tion­er for the TT Olympic and the Na­tion­al Foot­ball teams and with the Swim­ming Union of the Amer­i­c­as. He was the long-stand­ing chair­man of the WBA Med­ical Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, Chair­man of the WBA Fede­latin and Chair­man of the WBA Knock-Out Games in Trinidad pro­mot­ing sports in Trinidad for chil­dren for over 15 years.

The two-time pres­i­dent of the Com­mon­wealth Box­ing Served Coun­cil was a globe trot­ter and wore many hats. He served tire­less­ly as pres­i­dent of the Princess Eliz­a­beth Cen­tre, sup­port­ed the Red Cross and was known for his kind­ness, com­pas­sion and gen­eros­i­ty in all walks of life.

In­als­ingh, who grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ab­erdeen, toured Eu­rope with his uni­ver­si­ty band Los Lati­nos. He reg­u­lar­ly played the pi­ano, and gui­tar and sang and in­dulged in play­ing the gui­tar a few days be­fore his pass­ing.

He al­so served as the DMO for the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal. “We have been very blessed to have such a kind and car­ing fa­ther, who al­ways put fam­i­ly first. He lived the health, sport and fit­ness he preached and tru­ly con­tributed tire­less­ly to the na­tion.”

His daugh­ter Shiv­ana said: “We are so grate­ful for the show of love for our dad as we con­tin­ue to re­ceive calls from around the world.”