THE SHOW MUST GO ON.
Minister of Family, Youth and Sports Stephen Lashley has given the assurance that the historic AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships will not be aborted and is going forward as scheduled despite some logistic setbacks.
Lashley made the guarantee following a recent two-day water shortage along the south coast that forced the judges and officials to be relocated to the Crane Hotel in St Philip while hampering the visiting boxing contingents’ training regimes.
“The boxing continues,” reassured Lashley during a Press conference Friday evening at the host venue, the Wildey Gym.
“All of our boxers and officials are located on the south coast so obviously that impacted them, [but] we are comfortable that we are on top of the situation, [that] we have it under control and that the boxing will continue without disruptions.”
The situation arose on Thursday night when two water mains in the south coast area were ruptured before a third followed suit while the initial two were being fixed.
It left the touring boxing parties – who were put up at the Accra Beach Hotel, Golden Sands and Divi South Winds – without drinking or bathing water at their lodgings and the training facility in Maxwell.
But according to Lashley, the setbacks never led to AIBA president Dr Ching-Kuo Wu calling for the championships’ abandonment, as the boxing head was assured the tournament could continue as scheduled after meeting with Lashley and the local organising committee.
“They were very aware of what was happening and certainly very pleased we had things under control,” said Lashley of the AIBA contingent.
Their relocation has also created some issues in the transportation schedule, which led to an hour delay to Thursday’s programme, while there were challenges with the accreditation system due to the high volume of boxers.
In spite of those hindrances though, project manager David Reeves says that Thursday’s historic opening ceremony came in for high praise, thus boosting Barbados’ legacy as an ideal host venue for major championships.
“We’re going to do everything we can to ensure that we bring things back on track and the boxing is not impacted,” affirmed Reeves.
“[But] the feedback from the opening ceremony was extremely positive and as a result of that we have demonstrated that once again Barbados can rise to the challenge of delivering an international championship.”
