Taking one boxer to Olympics is a shame

By Omulo Okoth

What went wrong with Kenyan boxing? I keep asking myself this question every time I read reports of our boxers.

For if a country, which produced Africa’s first Olympics boxing gold medallist can only send one boxer to London Games, then something is terribly amiss.

Of the 10 boxers Kenya sent to the African qualification tournament in Casablanca, Morocco, last month, only Benson Gacheru Njangiru made it, thanks to a silver medal he won after being outpointed by Botswana’s Oteng’ Oteng’.

Not even the much fancied heavyweight national champion Daniel Shisia could make it. Light heavyweight Aziz Ali, who was in the Beijing Games four years ago, Super heavyweight Charles Odhiambo, welter weight Rayton Okwiri all fell by the way side. And so were light weight Dennis Okoth, Tobias Ayot, bantamweight Martin Aluoch, light weight Victor Opiyo, and lightfly Peter Warui.

Shisia lost by the narrowest of margins, 11-10 to Ghana’s Maxwell Amponsah. But that is water under the bridge.

By hosting the qualifiers, and ending up with the highest number of boxers from the continent, seven, did the home ground advantage favour Morocco? Or they are just better boxers, after all? Algeria will send six boxers to the Games, Egypt five, Cameroon and Ghana four each and Tunisia three.

Kenya is in the one boxer per country category with Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania and Zambia.

But how can we be in this  group? This is the question bothering me. The ‘Hit Squad’, as our national boxing team was known during the good old days, was unbeatable in the continent.

They travelled far and wide, taking part in the prestigious King’s Cup in Bangkok and Inter Cup in Germany.

This is squad that graduated into 1988 Olympics, which included the late Robert Wangila, who won gold after knocking out Frenchman Laurent Bouduani, and Chris Sande, among others.

The stylish boxers like Steve Mwema, Maurice Maina, David DK Kamau, David ‘Harish’ Ouma, the current coach Patrick ‘Mont’ Waweru, the late Harold Obunga, Sylvanus Okello ‘Sulu’, James Demosh Omondi, Steve Okumu, Joseph Akasamba, are extinct.

What went wrong? Has the Olympic qualification been made more stringent? Is it management, as National Olympic Committee of Kenya Chairman Kipchoge Keino, would wont to put it? Is it lack of sponsorship, which has reduced competitions to only ABA League matches, which don’t even attract enthusiastic crowds that we used to see during Kenya Open era?

Kenya Open used to be a must-watch fixture. Coaches Peter Mwarangu, Charles Longisa and the late Charles Anjimbi had the finest boxers to train after all the local and international competitions.

And they did a jolly good job out of the selected team. Longisa would work on their physical fitness like the world was ending. By the time they were taking on their opponents, they took on them head on.

At club level, there were equally passionate coaches. Joseph Onyango had his squad at Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, Patrick Okoth’s Railways team were never underdogs, Police team, popularly known as Chafua Chafua, under Jairus Onyango ‘Wamzee’, won many national titles, while Anjimbi’s squad at Breweries often dominated the national team, not to forget Mwarangu’s Prisons.

Eddie Papa Musie, the talent scout at Bangla, represented the development side of boxing. Boxing was serious business. There was boxing halls everywhere, from Madison Square Garden in Nakuru to Railways in Kisumu and Mombasa. We must go back there and kick-start boxing. How can we send a single boxer to the Olympics? It’s a shame.

— The writer is The Standard Sports Editor

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