Local pugilists may get second chance to reach Olympics By Donald Duff Stabroek News April 5, 2000 The Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) said yesterday that they will attempt to give their boxers a second chance of qualifying for the Sydney 2000 Olympic games scheduled for Australia from September 15 to October 5. None of the six boxers got past the first round of the pre-Olympic Games Box-Off held in Tampa, Florida from March 27- April 1, manager Rudolph Torrington and GABA president K. Juman-Yassin reported yesterday at a press conference. However, Yassin said there were two more opportunities for boxers from Guyana to qualify for the prestigious games. Another pre-Olympic Games Box-off competition will take place in Tijuana, Mexico within another 10 days while the final qualifying competition is set for Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 1 and 2. Yassin said as none of the Guyanese boxers were knocked out nor did the referee stop the contest in any of the bouts, they were all eligible to participate in the next box-offs. Performance Yassin said in his opinion the boxers did well, while according to Torrington all the boxers gave a good account of themselves. Torrington said on the first night three of the six boxers, Mark Dummett, Dorwin Norville and Esan Crandon were in action. Light flyweight Dummett, was considered Guyana's best hope but he ran into an old nemesis, Colombian Wilfredo Vasquez, and lost by an 11-5 score. Vasquez had previously gotten the better of Dummett in 1997 and again in 1999 in Ecuador, Torrington said. Junior welterweight Crandon came up against Kelson Pinto of Brazil in the 63.5kg division and was defeated, as was Dorwin Norville in his battle against Venezuela's Patrick Lopez in the 60 kg or lightweight class. Torrington said had the two boxers applied themselves a bit more they could have won. Torrington said light middleweight Markember Pere in his fight against Barbadian Edson Williams " was delivering punches from all angles." However, at the end, the judges gave the Barbadian one point and Pere none. And light heavyweight Shawn Corbin was leading 3-2 with seven seconds remaining against world champion American Michael Simms but when the fight ended, Simms was declared the winner by a 4-3 score. The remaining fighter Seibert Blake, who Torrington said had difficulty against the longer reach of his opponent, was beaten 5-4 by Nehonar Cermeno of Venezuela in the bantamweight class. Scoring system Once again, as at previous competitions, the computerised scoring came in for criticism. Some 10 Caribbean countries drafted a resolution protesting the computerised system. "We the following Caribbean member countries who are participating at the Olympic qualifier in Tampa wish to condemn the refereeing and judging of the competition and strongly voice our concern at the apparent discrimination against our boxers in a number of bouts. Further, it is our view that the scoring jury has not been paying sufficient attention to the bouts," part of the resolution stated. The resolution, which also asked for a review of the scoring card of all the bouts, was signed by Barbados, The Bahamas, Belize, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S Virgin Islands. Some 24 countries participated with the USA having some nine qualifiers, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina three each, Puerto Rico two and Colombia one. None of the boxers from the English speaking Caribbean qualified.