AN EXCITING AND TORTUOUS 18-HOUR JOURNEY TO ALGERIA FOR KENYAN TEENAGE BOXERS
▪️”To make the trip more comfortable I sat with them on our flight to Algeria”, says coach Musa Benjamin
It was an inspiring, engaging, exciting, scary and tortuous 18- hour journey to Algeria for Kenyan teenage boxers, Sonia Atieno and Lukeman Shaffi, who will participate in the inaugural African School Games in Annaba, Algeria, starting today (July 26, 2025).
Luckily enough they were accompanied by the vastly experienced and widely travelled Kenya’s national boxing team head coach Musa Benjamin. He describes the trip as a tiresome experience for the young boxers in their first ever flight.
“This has been a tortuous first flight trip for the youngsters but I was there for them,” says Musa.
“We left Nairobi on Thursday evening for this tiresome long journey with our young pugilists. We travelled for five hours to Dubai, seven hours to Algiers then another eight hours by road to Annaba.
“It was mixed feelings of excitement, fear and anxiety in their first ever flight,” Musa told boxersworld.co.ke
“To make it a bit more comfortable, I sat with them as a parent to guide them in everything pertaining to a flight journey. They enjoyed it, though at times closing their eyes in fear.”
Commenting on the participation of Sonia and Lukeman in the African School Games, Musa says: “This is going to be a psychologically very important tournament for these young boxers. It will definitely motivate not only them, but the very many young ones coming up well in different parts of our country.The feeling of representing your country is so huge.”
Boxing starts tomorrow (July 27, 2025) and already Musa is not amused with some areas in the organisation of the boxing tournament.
“I’m concerned with the organisation of these Games where it seems boxers as young as 14 could end up fighting 17-year-olds. These are totally different age groups but let’s wait for the technical meeting,” says a concerned Musa who has previously accompanied young boxers to the 2008 and 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games.
For the Games to take place, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) and the International School Sport Federation (ISF).
The Games will bring together between 2000 to 3000 students from across Africa taking part in various disciplines such as boxing, athletics, football and basketball.
“These Games reflect our shared ambition to promote school sports and offer young Africans a platform to flourish in a spirit of excellence and fraternity,” ANOCA president Mustapha Berraf was quoted as saying by the _Inside_ _Education_ publication.
