The St Lucia Amateur Boxing Association (SLABA) met this past weekend to review and look into an incident. It concerned St Lucia amateur boxers, Dalton “The Hurricane” George’s in his bout against Barbadian boxer Cobia Breedy which ended prematurely in an ugly brawl at the Lionel Hall Memorial Tournament in Barbados on July 7.
The SLABA executive along with the boxer involved in the bout and some of St Lucia’s top boxing officials, reviewed the video of the bout and heard a response from George as to what happened.
George was found to have clearly breeched the rules of amateur boxing, by pushing the referee Mr Nurse in the bout in question, a breech which he admitted to.
It was agreed that the SLABA would write to the Amateur Boxing Association of Barbados to communicate their decision on the incident and to offer an official apology. The SLABA will also raise its concern over the incident where several persons, boxers included, were able to make their way into the ring during the brawl. They hope the Amateur Boxing Association of Barbados will adequately put security measures in place, for all future amateur boxing events being staged there and will deal accordingly with the unauthorized individuals who made their way into the ring during the incident.
The SLABA hopes this incident does not sour the good relations between the amateur boxing bodies of the two countries and that their good relations will continue. It was pointed out that St Lucia has successfully participated in several boxing cards in Barbados before, the most recent before the July 7 encounter was the inaugural Ronald Wilson Memorial Boxing tournament in December of 2011.
