THE Guyana Boxing Association will kick off its year of activities for 2017 with a planned international competition on February 18. The GBA will collaborate with overseas-based

Guyanese Seon Bristol and Alford McDonald to stage the first of three international events for the year.
The February competition was long in the making and already St Maarten has signaled its intention of sending a team.
GBA president,Steve Ninvalle,said discussions are being held with Suriname,Trinidad and St. Lucia to add more international flavour.

According to Ninvalle the collaboration is part of his association’s stratergised effort to provide adequate and quality competition for Guyanese boxers and comes at a time when the GBA is preparing for major overseas engagements. He noted that both McDonald and Bristol are former boxers who have seen it as their duty to give back to the sport.
“Mr. McDonald has been relentless in making sure that the planned event becomes a reality and Seon Bristol has had a long relationship with the GBA. Our collective hope is that this will become an annual event,” Ninvalle declared.

When contacted, Bristol who resides in the USA, said that both him and McDonald are happy to give back to the sport. “We understand that the GBA, as most of the other associations in Guyana, has been struggling financially. We have seen it fit to talk the talk and also walk the walk and this is just another way of us repaying the sport we love,” Bristol said.
February’s event would be the first since Guyana took the Caribbean Development Tournament by the scruff of its neck. A local team of 11 boxers returned from Barbados in early December 2016 with 10 gold medals and one silver. Christopher Moore was named Best Boxer.