– Keevin Allicock voted Best Boxer

THE Guyana Defence Force (GDF) marched to their 18th consecutive national open championship title when the curtain came down on the Guyana Boxing Association’s (GBA) Terrence Ali open championships at the National Gymnasium on Sunday night.

Despite some good individual performances from the soldiers, the spotlight was on Forgotten Youth Foundation’s (FYF) and Junior Commonwealth Games bantamweight silver medalist, Keevin Allicock, who was adjudged Best Boxer of the tournament for the two Technical Knock-Out (TKO) victories he registered in as many fights of the three-night championships.

Winning championship titles for the GDF were Colin `Superman’ Lewis (junior welterweight), Desmond Amsterdam (middleweight), Aubrey Headley (heavyweight) and Shemear Mingo (super heavyweight).

The border patrol defence force boxers also ended the championships with six silver medals which assisted them to win the championship title.

With his sight set on the tournament’s best boxer award, as well as booking a spot on Guyana’s team for the Caribbean Amateur Championships slated for Guyana from December 6-9 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Allicock entered the ring in a no nonsense mood on Saturday night for his bantamweight contest against GDF’s Clinton Clarke and from the sound of the bell for the start of the first round, showed his class with terrific hand speed and dominated the fight until the referee had cause to bring an end to Allicock’s onslaught at two minutes 21 seconds of the second round.

Allicock, the new Albouystown `Cyclone’, was in the same destructive mood on Sunday night when he faced another soldier in Clairmont Gibson, who had no answer for the lightning hand speed and craftiness of Allicock and after being punished for one minute, 58 seconds during the first round, referee Richard Braithwaite had no other choice but to call a halt to the one-sided contest to save Gibson from further punishment or injuries.

The second soldier to appear on Sunday night’s card was Delroy Fordyce who had no answer for Rose Hall Jammers’ jamal Eastman in a lightweight contest that saw both Eastman and Fordyce going at each other with telling combinations, but seconds into the first round, Fordyce was clipped with a wicked left hook and the referee administered a standing eight count.

Eastman then started to add straight rights to his armoury and caught his opponent with one such shot and the referee issued a second eight count and on resumption, Eastman once again caught Fordyce with yet another straight right and referee, Romana Agard, stopped the fight at two minutes of the round.

From then onwards, the GDF boxers started to rack up victories. The first was a junior welterweight win for Lewis who secured a walk-over win from Vergenoegen Boxing Gym’s Christopher Moore and this was followed by a TKO win for Amsterdam who caused the referee to his contest against his gym mate Dwayne July with 21 seconds left in the second round.

Headley subsequently secured a split decision verdict against his fellow soldier, Markember Pierre in their heavyweight contest and finally, Mingo edged his GDF `squadee’, Emerson Farley by earning a split decision victory.

In results from the other finals on Sunday night, Patrick Harvey (FYF) won by a split decision against Rose Hall Jammers’ Francis Sukhu in their flyweight contest, Seon Griffith (FYF), after absorbing some amount of punishment at the hands of Harpy Eagles’ Kevin Allicock in their flyweight contest, was given the fight at the conclusion of the third round, as Kevin Allicock did not have his bandage marked by the officials before entering the ring.

The other fight on the night’s card, a welterweight bout between GDF’s Quincy Boyce and Harpy Eagles Emanuel Sancho, saw Sancho securing a unanimous points victory.