THREE North American boxers with Trinidad and Tobago roots will be in action on tonight's opening night of the Trinidad and Tobago National Amateur Boxing Championships which takes place from 7 p.m. at Cosmic Boxing Gym, Marabella.

The Championships will run over four nights. Action on the first two nights will take place from 7 p.m. in Marabella. On Saturday night (7 p.m.), fight action shifts to the Maloney Indoor Sport Arena, while the finals take place on Sunday from 1 p.m. at the Jean Pierre Complex.

Eight Americans and one Canadian fighter, all with T&T roots, have entered.

"This Championship will be used to select all our national teams for upcoming tournaments, including the team which goes to Brazil in May for the final qualifier for the 2012 London Olympics," TTABA president Cecil Forde declared. "After this tournament we will be selecting the team to go to Brazil, and as this is an Olympic year, many of the fighters have ambitions of qualifying for the Olympics and have used the opportunity to represent Trinidad and Tobago as a means of getting there".

Three of these foreign fighters will be in action tonight - all competing in the light-welterweight division. American Noel Glenford fights Anderson Chacon of Sand City, while another USA-born fighter Glenford Nikki Jr. takes on Anderson Chacon of Sand City. Meanwhile, Canadian Leroy Bates takes on capable Golden Fist boxer Dion Charles.

Expected to fight tomorrow is top local middleweight Andrew Fermin, the lone T&T fighter to compete at last year's Pan Am Games. Also to see action tomorrow is well-regarded USA-based light fly-weight Lawrence Singh. Singh, 17, is an American with a Trinidadian mother and Guyanese father, and has aspirations of qualifying for the London Olympics. Singh was introduced to the T&T public two months ago when losing a points decision to exciting Guyana Olympic hopeful Imran Khan at the Woodbrook Youth Facility. But Singh showed enough to suggest that he will be hard to beat at the Nationals. One of the big names not competing at the National Championship is super-heavy Tariq Abdul Haqq, who was a silver medalist at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. Haqq has law exams and has been given an exemption since he is by far the best amateur "big man" in the country.

Yesterday, Forde indicated that fighters will have to be at their very best to get a shot at selection onto the national team.

"Boxers have to do more than just win their division. The National Championships will be used to see who are the best boxers at this time. We will be looking at overall performance and at the top three medalists in each division before picking the national team," he said.