Olympic dream still alive for boxer Joshua Frazer — Jones
Stephen “Bomber” Jones, president of the Jamaica Boxing Board (JBB), said all is not lost for Jamaican boxer Joshua Frazer to make the Olympic Games team after he was disqualified which competing at the Jamaican Championship recently.
Fraser, the 2019 Caribbean welterweight champion, was disqualified by referee Kevin Stupart and the contest awarded to Jameer Edwards. Both Frazer and Edwards are based in Canada.
The 25-year-old Fraser is seen as one of the island’s best hopes of reaching the Olympics and even medalling and his disqualification disappointed many.
But Jones told the Jamaica Observer that young Frazer’s Olympics dream is basically in the hands of Edwards, who has the first shot at qualification in Argentina next month.
“The team selection now would be all those that won in their respective divisions and they will get the chance to go in Argentina and make the Olympics if they qualify,” Jones explained.
“If Edwards qualifies in the welterweight division, Joshua is out. He no longer has any options of getting into Tokyo because only one boxer from a country per weight class can go,” he added.
“If he (Edwards) doesn’t, there will be another qualification round in France (May) and by right, Joshua will get the opportunity to go there and see if he can qualify.
But it all depends on if Edwards does well or not. If he does well then Joshua’s Olympic road would be over,” Jones reiterated.
The promising Joshua Frazer is coached by his father Dewith Frazer, who left Jamaica as a 12-year-old and later represented Canada at the 1984 Olympic Games.
In 2017, it was reported that Dewith Frazer and the governing Boxing Canada had a falling out after his son was cut from government funding because he didn’t attend their centralised national training centre in Montreal but instead stayed and trained with his father.
Coach Frazer argued that his son spent five weeks at the centre earlier in the year which came out of his pocket and also said there was no supervision for the boxers there since there is no Canadian head coach.
—Howard Walker