GBA President Steve Ninvalle and three-star Referee/judge James Beckles
The Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) has, once again, called on the expertise of three- star referee/ judge James Beckles, to further edify Guyana’s compliment of judges for the sport.
In 2023, two seminars in the Intermediary Workshop and beginners’ Forum were hosted by Beckles, which saw the number of refer/ judges in Guyana being increased significantly.
Now, Beckles is conducting the same courses, in addition to a refresher, taking advantage of the ongoing Caribbean Schoolboys/ girls and Juniors tournament this weekend.
During the simple opening of the course at the National Racquet Center, Woolford Avenue, Georgetown, GBA President Steve Ninvalle spoke of the importance of such courses.
“The referee/ judging area is a very important department of Boxing. If we don’t have educated referee/ judges, then our whole tournament would not be as successful as it should be. The rules of the game keeps changing, Mr. Beckles is a savant and a competent authority on that and that is why we keep trying to embrace him,” Ninvalle shared.
Some of the referees who benefitted from the training courses
In further expressing his vision for the training opportunities, Ninvalle revealed intentions to rope in boxers and trainers in the next edition.
The GBA Boss opined, “I think it is also very important that our boxers also try to be a part of this and our trainers too. Because a lot of times, the trainers are not in- tuned with the new rules and that is why sometimes we see people jumping and waving when a referee would stop a fight, it’ because of the fact that they are not ofay with what is new, they know what used to happen in 1970, but they don’t know what’s going on in 1990 and the 2000’s and so forth.”
“So, the next time around Mr. Beckles, I’ll try to have a wider pool that includes our trainers. I think that is very, very important,” Ninvalle added.
On the other hand, James Beckles has just completed a stint at the Paris Olympics, as the Lead evaluator and lecturer for the Olympic referees, a first for the Caribbean.
The referee/ judge was elated to impart his newfound knowledge while praising one of Guyana’s major achievements.
“It’s wonderful to be a Caribbean person and then immediately after the Olympics, come to the Caribbean and impart that knowledge on our referees here. I’m proud to also say that Guyana has the youngest referee in the Caribbean and probably in the world,” Beckles said, referring to 13-year- old Jumaine Moore who also took part in the course last week.
The Boxing training courses commenced on Thursday and ran for the remainder of the weekend.
