National Amateur Boxing Championships begin today
The annual National Amateur Boxing Championships will launch the 2018 season with the Open and Novices Class Boxing Championships at the Stanley Couch Gym, Victoria Avenue today starting at 7:00 pm.
Eight of the most active boxing gyms across Jamaica will participate in both categories including defending champions the Jamaica Defence Force Boxing Gym, as well as Stanley Couch Boxing Gym, Boys’ Town Boxing Gym, Sugar Knockout Boxing Gym, Oracabessa Boxing Gym, St Thomas Boxing Gym, G C Foster Boxing Gym and Dreamscape Boxing Gym.
The championships will be contested over three days with eliminations over the first two days and the grand finals set for Saturday when the individual champions will be declared.
Both categories of boxers will compete for points. The novices are rated from one to four and Open Class from five upwards. The novices class is 18 years old and over and will compete against the Open Class in an attempt to increase their points rating. And as much as eight titles from eight classes will be contested and include super heavyweight, heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, light welterweight, welterweight, lightweight and bantamweight.
According the Kingsley Goodison, a Jamaica Boxing Board of Control director and director of amateur boxing development, the Junior Boxing Championship will be held in a month’s time and that age group is from 14 to 17 years. Following the completion of the amateur championships to keep the boxers active for future development, some international tournaments will come up, Goodison disclosed, and around the 24 of next month an amateur team from the United States will visit Jamaica for a tournament to be held in Manchester.
After that “we are expecting Canada to visit for a return contest among our youth boxers between 13 years old and 17 years. We visited them in October of last year and we are looking forward for their visit. The Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum Contender Boxing Series should start about that time of the visit. Competition will be a nonstop thing and training will continue among our local boxers,” Goodison said.