Guyanese referees to participate in virtual seminar

Steve Ninvalle, President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) and Vice President of the Americas Boxing Confederation (AMBC), has organised a two-day virtual seminar for referees/judges of the English-speaking Caribbean, Haiti, Suriname and Curacao.

The seminar will be conducted by Chairman of the AIBA Referee/Judges Commission, Ray Silvas of the USA, and will run from August 8 to 9. Thus far, 149 participants from 17 countries have registered for the seminar.
Guyana will be represented by eight officials. The local team will be led by ABIA One Star referees Richard Braithwaite and Lawrence Assanah, and the country’s first and only AIBA-certified International Technical Officer (ITO), Elton Chase. Jermaine Craig, Colin Rodney, Nicola Yhap, Shanice Agard and Denola Bristol are the other participants.
This seminar follows close on the heels of a coaches’ seminar that was run by the AMBC a few weeks ago. At that seminar, Guyana was represented by Terrence Poole, MS; Sebert Blake, Clive Atwell, Joseph Murray and Orlan Rogers.
Ninvalle has said the upcoming seminar was discussed with Silvas when they had met in Panama in January. He said, “Mr. Silvas was very eager to have this happen, and we would have had cogent discussions in Panama. However, the advent of COVID-19 has forced us to make it a virtual one.”
As Chairman of the Caribbean Steering Committee, Ninvalle added that a seminar to update coaches on the technical aspects of scoring of fights will be conducted soon after this one. He said, “If we are to train our fighters to win, then it is important that our coaches understand what the referees and judges are looking for. A lot has changed from the 80s and 90s.”