Close to 90 boxers from eight Caribbean territories are in Saint Lucia for the 2024 Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Invitational Boxing Tournament. The tournament, which is being staged between Friday and Saturday at the Vigie Sports Complex, is the biggest boxing event ever held in Saint Lucia, according to President of the Saint Lucia Boxing Association, David ‘Shakes’ Christopher.
Christopher disclosed to St. Lucia Times that the host team will comprise 30 athletes. Most of the boxes are relatively young and inexperienced, but they represent a growing programme.
“I think this year OECS will be a real spectacle,” he asserted. “We want to encourage persons to make sure they make this event a big one, come out and support. Fans could expect to see
the future of the Caribbean. And it’s good to see it for yourself so nobody could tell you what the future look like.
“It’s developmental time now. We see Trinidad & Tobago coming with 18 young boxers, as young as the age of eight. We also have some 9 and 10 years old here also. So we’ve seen a lot of young boxers that coming through the development programme.
“You’re going to still see some elite boxers, you’re going to see the schoolboys which, is
the middle range, and you’re going to see the youths in the likes of the Kyle Marcelle and the John Didier and Orlando Monrose and Herve Charlemagne. These are exciting boxers that are coming through the youth and the schoolboy programme right now.”
Christopher told St. Lucia Times that attendance at gyms in Vigie and Vieux Fort has been consistent, and that over the past two years since COVID restrictions were relaxed, the programme has grown from strength to strength.
He voiced his delight with where boxing is at the moment, having its own home, and being able to host delegations from Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Martinique, Sint Maarten, and Trinidad & Tobago. This, he notes, will be a big boost for the sport.
“We are very pleased because we are one of the countries who’s high up in the development in the Caribbean. We can match up almost all 18 boxers that coming out of Trinidad & Tobago – they have a development programme. We can still match up some of the middle class,
“It shows – the volume of boxers that we have right now – that we are still growing, because we have boxers that won’t even enter this tournament, but we still have the numbers. We are going into this tournament with 30 boxers. But then when you look at our numbers in the gyms, we are up to 70.
“So some will not get a chance to box now but they will get a chance as more tournaments come along. And you know we giving everybody a chance so we can measure them and see
where they at, see where the programme is going.
The SLBA recently unveiled its new kit, with veteran and novice pugilists alike getting competition uniforms and tracksuits. Christopher’s thinking is that the better they look, the better they will feel. And the better they feel, the better they will perform. That theory will be tested this weekend, on the biggest stage ever in Saint Lucia.
