▪️Senegal Boxing Federation Secretary-General Anta Gueye names two boxers to do battle in $8.32 million IBA World Boxing Championships
26/11/2025
Senegal will be represented by two boxers in the 23rd edition of the $8.32 million IBA World Boxing Championships set for the glittering city of Dubai from December 2-13, 2025.
The Secretary-General of the Senegal Boxing Federation Anta Gueye told boxersworld.co.ke they have picked on Africa heavyweight champion Karamba Kebe and welterweight Cheikh Tidiane Diop to represent the West African country with a rich boxing tradition.
“The choice of our two boxers is justified by their continental record and their current technical level,” said the towering Gueye, a former taekwondo black belt player.
“Karamba is a wise choice, being the Africa champion and Cheikh Tidiane Diop has some experience at the World Championships having participated in the Tashkent Games in 2023. He also defeated our Kinshasa 2024 African vice-champion, Mouhamed Abdalah Diallo by knockout in a professional boxing match in October.”
Gueye is optimistic the two boxers will excel in Dubai against the world’s best boxers vying for the top prize money of $300,000 for gold medallists, $150,000 and $75,000 for silver and bronze medallists respectively. There’s also $10,000 for quarter-finalists in the richest ever amateur boxing tournament on earth.
“We hope they can achieve a satisfactory result in Dubai. If they can’t reach the podium, at least 5th place,” said Gueye, a former board member of the Africa Boxing Confederation (AFBC).
Cheikh won a gold medal in the 2023 Africa Zone 2 Championships and finished fifth at the 2023 African Championships in Yaounde, Cameroon. He has improved significantly.
Kebe, based in France, is still basking in glory following his historic achievement in the 2024 Africa Elite Championships in Kinshasa, DR Congo. The southpaw Kebe won Senegal’s first gold in 26 years since 1998 in Algiers where lightweight Mama Sow outpointed South Africa’s Elvis Makama to win Senegal’s first ever gold medal in the Africa Elite Championships.
“It’s one of my greatest achievements because I have already won titles that did have as much impact as this one in Kinshasa,” Kebe told me in an interview. He’s now campaigning as a pro boxer in Toulouse, France.
Kebe and Cheikh are among the four boxers who represented Senegal in the 2023 IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.The other two were middleweight Alphonce Mendy and light-heavyweight Seydina Mouhamed Konate. They all lost 5-0 in their first fights..
Kebe was eliminated by Mexico’s Rodriguez Moreno, Konate lost to Frenchman Bauderlique Mathieu Albert Daniel, Mendy was beaten by Mongolia’s Jargal Otgonjargal and Cheikh went down to Spain’s Orozco Ojeda.
A total of 102 boxers from 29 African countries took part in the Tashkent Worlds with Kenya leading by sending the highest number of boxers – eight – to the former Soviet Union state.
Africa has gone through an eight-year drought in the Men’s World Championships since Cameroon’s super-heavyweight Arsene Fokou Fosso, now a pro boxer in Australia, won a bronze medal in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.
