World Boxing President Boris van der Vorst praised Jamaica’s “Gloves over Guns” initiative and has outlined a road map for success as he partners with Jamaica’s Boxing Association and the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) to keep the Olympic dream alive.
"I was really touched to see how boxing can change the lives of young boys and young girls and even not only change their lives, some of them save their lives. I think that's amazing. It shows how relevant boxing is, and it was, for me, truly inspirational to make that visit in Montego Bay yesterday,” van der Vost said during a press conference on Monday at the JOA headquarters on Monday.
The van der Vorst-led World Boxing is a breakaway group that was established in 2023, shortly before the International Boxing Association (IBA) lost its Olympic recognition due to governance issues and a lack of financial transparency.
Now the sporting body is hoping to cement itself as the flagship international federation for Olympic boxing after increasing its membership to 89 countries, including Jamaica. Since then, World Boxing has restored the sport’s place at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 after being granted provisional recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month.
"I'm here as president of World Boxing, and for me, it's also important to develop the Caribbean region, and we have a roadmap for LA 2028,” van der Vorst, whose five-day visit to Jamaica ends on Tuesday, stated.
That said, van der Vorst pointed out that he will assist in laying the framework to develop coaches in Jamaica who will eventually unearth and develop great boxers.
“All the stakeholders, including the Olympic Committee, Ministry of Sports, and corporate companies, need to also take some responsibility to facilitate these conditions in Jamaica. But I'm pretty optimistic about the cooperation,” he reiterated.
A beaming Stephen “Bomber” Jones, Jamaica Boxing Association’s president, reiterated the importance of such a historic visit to the island and his demands for excellence in improving the sport in Jamaica and the region.
"He demands excellency. The trip that he's taken here wasn't taken lightly by him. So, he came, and he was very impressed by what he's seen,” said Jones.
“He was pleasantly surprised to see the number of boxers, the amount of people that turned out. The parents, the teachers. So, now his biggest takeaway was we need to make sure we galvanize that and have the coaches upgraded into a position that they can compete and that they can officially, not just here, but internationally,” Jones added.
Jones, who has been at the helm since 2011, said his number one goal is to get boxing into 16 schools so that they can have a high school championship and build from there.
“Hopefully, we get PE teachers from schools that we can put on a national level and then, through Mr Van Der Vorst, have a high-level coach come down to train the coaches so that everybody has a level platform,” Jones explained.
Meanwhile, the president of the JOA, Christopher Samuda, noted that van der Vorst’s visit is not only historic but also strategic for Jamaica, and he plans to continue supporting local boxing every step of the way.
“The Jamaica Olympic Association, we threw our support behind the Jamaica Boxing Association. It's strategic because we need to develop a roadmap, a sustainable model so that we can transition our boxers to the international stage, to the world stage,” Samuda said.
It's strategic because we are benefiting from the dialogue that we are conducting with the president of our boxing here now so that he can look at our infrastructure, look at our boxers, look at our administrators, and make recommendations as to how we can deepen that engagement with those three critical assets of sport, the administrator, coach, and the talent. So, for us, it is a welcome visit as we continue to support the Jamaica Boxing Association as we transition the talent to box us to the Olympic stage and the world stage,” he added.