4 to represent Guyana at Golden Belt series in Morocco

Four Guyanese boxers are slated to jet off later this month for Marrakech in Morocco, where they will compete in the International Boxing Association’s (IBA’s) World Boxing Tour Golden Belt series.
The Guyanese team consists of Keevin Allicock, Colin Lewis, Desmond Amsterdam and female boxer Abiola Jackman. Accompanying the four-member Guyanese boxing team to Morocco are coaches Terrence Poole and Lennox Daniels.
While the team has been in constant preparation mode, with their last competitive outing being the Terrence Ali National Open Championships held in December 2022, Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) President Steve Ninvalle has said a few more proverbial boxes need to be ticked before the team departs for Morocco.
“Right now, we’re dealing with the visa aspect of that (trip); we’ve already selected the team of 4 and two coaches,” Ninvalle told Guyana Times Sport.
The Golden Belt series is a fairly new competition; this is its third edition, after two successful events were held in Slovenia and Mexico in 2022. This time, the competition will run from January 31 to February 11, 2023, and according to the IBA, the competition has seen some 245 main boxers and 84 reserve boxers registering from 33 countries across the world. The likes of Morocco, Spain, Algeria, Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Mozambique and Chinese Taipei will be in action at this competition. The men’s and women’s categories would each have 13 weight classes.
According to the IBA, the World Boxing Tour (WBT) consists of a series of events that are classified into four categories: the Diamond Belt, Golden Belt, Silver Belt and Bronze Belt tournaments. The WBT tournaments will contribute to the new IBA ranking system, which would allow boxers to collect valuable points in each tournament. These points would help define not only the most successful boxers at the end of the year, but also the most successful National Federations, having generated the highest results throughout the season.