COLIN `Superman’ Lewis and Joel `Stone’ Williamson started Guyana’s hunt for `Gold’ on a positive note on Wednesday evening when the Caribbean Boxing Championships got underway in St. Lucia.

Despite being drastically reduced in terms of the compliment of boxers representing Guyana at the championships, the two Guyanese–Lewis (welterweight) and Williamson (lightweight)–were unstoppable as they both finished their `prospecting’ within the three rounds of both their contests against their opponents from Barbados.
According to reports, St. Lucia’s Boxing Association’s president, David `Shakes’ Christopher is quoted as saying “The Guyanese puppies’ are biting very hot and provided quality entertainment for a hungry St. Lucia crowd, despite arriving in St. Lucia on Wednesday morning.”

Adding, “It was quality execution of boxing on display and we are looking forward for such displays. I have said before that Guyana has some of the best boxers in the Region and what we saw tonight (Wednesday) proved that I’m not wrong.
Guyana almost missed the championships due to the lack of funding and Guyana Boxing Association’s (GBA) president, Steve Ninvalle, explained that if it was not for the intervention of Minister of Social Cohesion with responsibility for Sport, George Norton, the team would have been smaller.

Originally, the GBA wanted to send a full team of 13 boxers, three coaches and two referee/judges, but because of funding, the association could have only sent four boxers, a coach and a referee/judge.
The other boxers on the four-man team are; Desmond `Dynamite’ Amsterdam (middleweight) and `Lightning’ Keevin Allicock (bantamweight), while the coach is GBA’s Technical Director, Terrence Poole and the referee/judge is Lawrence Assanah of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).

Assanah will be attempting to become the third Guyanese referee/judge to be certified as an AIBA One Star referee/judge. Romona Agard and Richard Braithwaite picked up their One Star badges in Barbados last year.

Ninvalle extended gratitude to Minister Norton, the National Sports Commission, the GDF and the Guyana Olympic Association for assisting the six-man team to St. Lucia.
Guyana won the inaugural Caribbean Development Tourney when it was hosted here in Guyana in 2015 and made a successful defence of the championship title last year in Barbados; winning 10 gold medals and one silver from an 11-member team.
All four of the boxers at this year’s championships won gold medals last year after which Allicock went on to win a silver medal at the Junior Commonwealth Games that were held in The Bahamas earlier this year.