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By Neto Baptiste
Antigua and Barbuda jabbed their way to a total of six medals at the OECS Boxing Championships recently held in St. Lucia, claiming two gold, three silver and a bronze.
There was gold for Osahar Browne in the Junior super heavyweight 92+kg and Leon Laudat in the Youth Light welterweight 63.5Kg. Jeremiah Toussaint fought his way to silver in the Elite lightweight 57-60kg with veteran Yakita Aska also getting silver, fighting in the Heavyweight 92+kg. There was silver as well for Zalaan Jan in the Cruiserweight 86kg while Jan also won bronze in the Light Heavy 80kg.
Coach Anthony Severin commended the boxers for their outstanding performances given the trying circumstances regarding finances for travel ahead of their trip.
“I think our boxers did extremely well knowing the situation that we came from in terms of not knowing whether they were going to be able to go to this event. Two of them ended up being sponsored by St. Lucia, the host country, and the others we got sponsors. One actually paid for himself and the other, we got a sponsor, so I think that under the circumstances, these guys actually did really good,” he said.
Severin, owner of the Uprising Boxing Gym, said Jan and Aska should have walked away with at least one other medal but the absence of an appeals process hampered those chances.
“We still believe there was a bit of bias in our decisions for Zalaan Jan and Yakita Aska. We tried to protest these fights but they said we could not contest those decisions because there wasn’t an observer at the event, so they said next time they are going to make sure they have that in place so that we could contest if a fight is not scored properly.
“One of our boxers, Zalaan Jan, got a point taken away from him when they should have taken that point from the opponent, so we saw the scorecard and saw that there was an error and we ended up getting a loss for that fight,” he said.
Antigua and Barbuda finished fourth overall at the championships. The team of five boxers and two coaches were forced to pay their own way to the championships after they could not access funding from the local NOC or the Ministry of Sports. Reports are the head of the near dormant boxing association, Len Mussington, did not sanction the team’s participation in the championships which meant they could not access funding from either entity.
The team was also accompanied by Stanford Ross, who travelled as assistant coach.
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