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The fate of this year’s National Stick Fighting Competition now hangs in the balance after boismen boycotted Friday’s preliminary round at the St Mary’s Basketball Court in Moruga as they demanded an increase in prize monies.
Michael Hernandez, manager of the Rio Claro Gayelle, said unless the National Carnival Commission (NCC) agrees to raise the prizes, there will be no stick fighting this year.
Boismen are demanding that the King of the Rock prize be increased from $20,000 to $60,000 while the Kings of the Gayelle move from $35,000 to $80,000.
Hernandez said they were being reasonable as they reduced their initial demand of a $80,000 and $100,000 for the top prizes in the respective competitions.
While most of the gayelles across the country showed up before a packed audience, only St Mary’s Gayelle A, St Mary’s Gayelle B, Longdenville Gayelle and Gran Couva Gayelle B registered for the competition.
Coordinators made several calls for registration and after 25 minutes without a response, an official told the audience that the cancellation of the preliminaries was out of their hands. The lights on the stage were shut off and the officials left.
The traditional throwing money in the pot for a fight took place but in no way was it enough to appease stick fight lovers who travelled to the country.
Hernandez said earlier this month, boismen were called to a meeting with the NCC, who failed to answer questions about the prize structure. He said they waited until this week to inform them that the prize structure had not changed.
“This has been ongoing for three years that we are fighting for more money. The Government gives NCC a certain amount of money to run the competition and they also have corporate sponsors. They were also left with a good purse from the previous year, so they must have money saved for this year. The bottom line is that we, the stick fighters, are fed up with how they are treating us.
“Stick men don’t have insurance, not even on the night just in case they get injured badly. You compete at your own risk. We talked about this already and they said they are not responsible. So when you go there and get lick up, you have nothing to get. But this is something that tourists from all over the world come to see around Carnival time,”Hernandez said.
NCC chairman Colin Lucas said the boismen waited for the competition night to ambush the commission. However, he said the commission would meet with the boismen this week to determine whether the competition could go on.
“We don’t respond to ambush. There must have been considerable disappointment by many people who showed up. We will have to do damage control. We are discussing money against a backdrop of lesser resources, but as far as we understand, the matter was put to rest when the last meeting was concluded. Ambush is never the way. That undermines a relationship. I am hoping that it is not beyond repair,” Lucas said.
