Cayman’s amateur boxers brought home three gold medals from the 2017 Caribbean Developmental Boxing Tournament in Saint Lucia December 13th to 16th. Bantamweight Alexander Smith defeated Jeremiah Toussaint of Antigua, followed by a gold medal performance over Travis Stanislaus of hometown Saint Lucia in his second fight of the tour.
“I’m happy that I won a medal, hard work paid off in the end” said Smith.
The other gold medals came from Light Flyweight Brandy Barnes, fighting in her second official amateur fight, defeating Precious Lythcott of Barbados.
“I feel like I started off slow in the first round, but my conditioning kicked in the second round. Feel happy with my performance and my medal is well deserved” said Barnes.
Flyweight Chambria Dalhouse defeated Angelique Quevado of Trinidad and Tobago to win a gold medal. Both Dalhouse and Barnes fought directly in the medal rounds due to lack of competitors.
Head Coach Ryan Barrett says he was pleased with the medalists performances.
“Standout performances were Chambria, Alexander and Brandy winning gold. The camp in England paid off for them. Neandra Forbes-Morgan, in my opinion won clearly but lost in a split decision.”
Former Light Heavyweight and reigning gold medalist Dariel Ebanks lost in his first fight of the tournament to Keegan Mortley of Saint Lucia. Barrett says it was not the outcome he was expecting.
“He failed to make the weight in time, then got it off. He has to go back to the drawing board, and train properly.”
In a Facebook post, Ebanks lamented in his disappointed.
“I might have not gotten the win in my last fight but I’ll come back stronger next time it’s a new weight class so I’ll work on my errors and I’ll be back stronger and better.”
Over half of the boxers competing were stepping into the ring for their first official amateur fight. Barrett said he saw promise in many of them.
“Aaron Miller, Keanu, they were in really tough fights, but they’ll come again and be stars for the Cayman Islands.”
Next up for Cayman’s boxers is the 2018 Commonwealth Games Apr 4, 2018 – Apr 15, 2018. Cayman will send boxers to the event in Australia, however the Cayman Islands Olympic Committee has yet to release the number of athletes per sport that will compete.
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