Sixteen-year-old Moolchan Sankar believes that he has been cheated out of a place on the Guyana boxing team to the Junior Commonwealth Games set for Pune, India in October.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sports Sankar said he felt cheated and disappointed after not being named on the four-member team to represent Guyana at the games which will run from October 12-18.
Last week the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) named Akeem Alexander, Herlando Allicock, Stefan Gouveia and Cleveland Rocke to participate at the Games.
The four boxers will be accompanied by coaches Carl Franklyn and Terrence Poole and manager Affeezem Khan.
Sankar, a member of Ricola Boxing Gym, represented Guyana at this year’s Caribbean Amateur Boxing Association Games (CABA) in Trinidad and Tobago which was held at the Chaguaramas Convention Centre and won gold in the pinweight (101-pound) category.
However, he lost his spot on the team after he refused to participate in a box-off with Herlando Allicock for the spot.
Allicock is also a CABA gold medallist winning the 112-pound category at the CABA tournament.
President of GABA, Khan had told the boxers prior to the CABA Games that whoever won a gold medal at the CABA tournament would be guaranteed a spot in the final four to attend the Junior Commonwealth Games.
Sankar’s coach Paulette Nurse told Stabroek Sport that she heard of the box-off from Moonchan verbally and she told him that she would prefer a written invitation before she allowed him to participate.
She added that Khan then contacted her by telephone and gave her a proper invitation 24 hours before the event which she claimed was too short notice to readily prepare her boxer who had been away from her for four months as he was training with the national boxing coach Franklyn.
“A boxer does not only need to prepare physically for his fight but mentally also, and I raised Moolchan and for him to be away from me so long and then to put him in a contest would be wrong, I haven’t seen his technique to say whether his jab or defence is slack,” Nurse said. “They even contacted her mother and she does not know anything about boxing and it frustrated her to the point where she said that Moolchan is not boxing anymore and this was another reason why he missed the box-off,” she added.
Nurse said she could not understand how, after Khan promised the gold medal winners that they would be selected on the team, could Sankar, a gold medal winner will not be going while there is a boxer on the team who did not win a gold medal and was going.
“It is unfair because they are bringing Allicock down to 105lbs category where my boxer is a legitimate contender at that weight while Allicock is primarily the 112lbs boxer.
“Furthermore, I think they are doing this because they would like to input two Guyana Defence Force boxers into the squad so that Franklyn can get a ticket to attend the Games,” she added. Sankar said that he knows that Allicock is stronger than he is and more experienced so the percentage of Allicock winning to Sankar’s winning would have been greater.
“It’s hurtful because I trained hard and fought hard to win my gold and reached all the requirements promised a spot and now am not going anywhere because of what they can’t make clear to me,” Sankar told Stabroek Sport.
Khan, in an invited comment yesterday told Stabroek Sport:“I said to all the boxers anybody who gets a gold would be considered for India.”
Khan said he was hurt by the situation.
“I feel very upset that he would not be able to travel with the team. All the boxers also feel sorry about the situation. We sympathise with him.”
Franklyn said he had indicated to Sankar that he would have had to make the team as a light flyweight as there were no pinweight or cadet category at the championships.
