‘Six Head’ National Novices Championships set for this weekend

The Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) will officially stage the 2023 edition of the Andrew ‘Six Head’ Lewis National Novices Championships from Friday, September 29th to Sunday, October 1st at the National Gymnasium on Mandela Avenue.
The event will feature participation from notable gyms such as defending champions the Guyana Defence Force, the Guyana Police Force, Forgotten Youth Foundation, Pace and Power, Rose Hall, Vergenoegen, and Republican, and action will commence on a daily basis at 18:00hrs. The medical assessment and weight-in will occur on Thursday at the National Gymnasium from 16:00 hrs.
GBA President Steve Ninvalle has declared that National Novices Championships are where the sport’s developmental journey begins.
Named after Guyana’s notable world champion the late Andrew Six Head Lewis, the tournament has evolved into a combination of national scouting for the GBA and a conduit and bridge in our structured and methodical process, Ninvalle has said.
“Each tournament hosted under the umbrella of the GBA is underpinned by its own unique objectives, and the National Novices Championships is an exhibition of the nation’s potential for the future, which continues to indicate a positive consequence, given Guyana’s empirical dominance of the region. The GBA continues to emphasize the importance of such competitions, events that have an enduring importance in the overall framework for the sport. As such, its impact and value cannot be questioned, much less understated, given the influence and impetus it has provided to the sport’s fraternity,” the GBA boss added.

Terrence Poole, Technical Director of the GBA, has said, “This tournament is very important to the growth of the sport. It’s the beginning stage, where we identify the talents and abilities of the fighters and the potential they have to move forward in the sport. This is where we earmark talent for the future. We are expecting a large turnout for the tournament from the various gyms. Everyone comes with the intention to win, so I expect a very competitive event.”
The Championships, staged in honour of the former world champion Andrew Six Head Lewis who unfortunately died on May 4th, 2015 in a vehicular accident, have birthed the journey of many of the nation’s leading premier amateur pugilists.