THE Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) has selected a three-man team to participate in the prestigious ‘Road to Antalya’ Training Camp to be held fromApril 18 to 29 in Antalya, Turkey. National coach Wincell Thomas will accompany boxers Theresa London and Carol Ann Bess to Turkey. The 11-day training camp will be followed by AIBA Women’s Junior/Youth World Boxing Championships to be held in the same city from April 29 to May 8.
President of the GABA, Steve Ninvalle, said yesterday that the Selection Committee met last week and after careful deliberation chose the aforementioned persons.
Ninvalle declared that the training camp is a welcome one for local boxing and comes at a time when GABA is battling to get more females involved in the sport.
He reminded that just last year two other female local boxers were sent to Barbados for training through AIBA and that the upcoming camp will impact heavily on the development female boxing in Guyana.
The GABA was also high in praise for AIBA president Dr Ching-Kuo Wu for making the training programme available to Guyana.
“When I met Dr Wu in India last year, he had promised that AIBA had several programmes for female boxers coming up and gave notice that Guyana would be involved. We are indeed thankful to Dr Wu for being a man of his word and offering this kind of support to Guyana,” Ninvalle said. Junior flyweight Bess hails from the Young Achievers gym while London, a featherweight and daughter of former world champion Pamela `Grenade’ London, fights out of the Forgotten Youth Foundation.
Participants of the `Road to Antalya must be born between January 1, 1995 and December 31, 1996.
Last year GABA was invited to send two fighters to the ‘Road to Barbados’ Training Camp.  Shem Cuffy, from Port Kaituma Gym, accompanied Ansilla Norville and Venessa Robinson to Barbados for the two-week training camp.
Both boxers participated at the world championships which immediately followed. According to Ninvalle the training programme in Turkey will also be a big boast to Thomas who was appointed national coach last year.