A team of three experienced Anguillian boxers will compete in St. Lucia in the Creole Games there from July 23 -29. The boxers are Cecil Hodge Jr.,Welterwight Division;Kesley Richardson, Middleweight Division; and Curvin Benjamin, Lightweight Division. They regard this opportunity as a good substitute for their participation in the OECS Games to which they were invited in May, but were not prepared to take part.
“We all are experienced fighters in the sport,” Hodge told The Anguillian. “We fought in St. Kitts, in St. Maarten and then we had an open exhibition here in Anguilla in 2010. We won both in St. Kitts and St. Maarten.”
He described boxing as “a slow sport in Anguilla and in the Caribbean as a whole” but noted that “it is now trying to pick up.” Hodge went on: “Before we go to the Creole Games we will be fighting in Saba on the 20th of July. Kesley Richardson will compete against a fighter from Antigua; and Curvin and I will be taking on a fighter from Saba.”
Hodge said boxing was a disciplined sport, teaching anger management and a lot of different things. “It is a really tough skill to practice,” he continued. “As someone who loves sports, when I got into boxing it was something totally different to what is going on in Anguilla in sports – and I love it.”
The local boxing club, formed in 2009, is called Anguilla Revolution Fighters. The training centre is at West End. It has a membership of twenty-one boxers with only Hodge, Richardson and Benjamin actually competing.
