GUINEA CIRCUS ENDS QUIETLY WITHOUT WINNERS ANNOUNCED
▪️ Getting info from the organisers has been as difficult as squeezing water from a stone
▪️ Kudos to AFBC and IBA for jointly staging R&J and ITO courses
The circus that is the Africa Youth Boxing Championships ended quietly on Saturday, May 24, in Guinea’s capital city Conakry.
Interestingly, the organisers have so far not shared the final results, the final overall winners table and medalists in the shoddily-organised event that turned out to be a big embarrassment to Africa. Infact from Thursday, for unknown reasons, they’ve not shared the results.
Efforts to contact the Technical Director (TD) Godavarisingh Rajiv Rajcoomar to share the info were unsuccessful. He has not been responding to messages and calls. It’s like he was gagged this time around because this is uncharacteristic of him. In previous African events, Raj has shared info freely but in Guinea it appears he was operating under a lot of stress. I hope my friend Raj will go for a medical check-up immediately on arrival home in Mauritius.
With only 46 boxers – 37 boys and nine girls – from eight countries, the event was nothing but a flop coming at the wrong time when there’s a deep division in Africa Boxing Confederation (AFBC) with two warring factions battling for power.
In one corner is the IBA- recognised President Eyassu Berhanu while in the other corner is the combative General Ilunga Luyoyo with his noisy brigade which brags to have the numbers.
This rift obviously affected the Africa Youth Championships with majority of the countries aligned to Luyoyo’s faction giving it a wide berth. In essence, the low attendance in Guinea was like a vote of no-confidence in Eyassu’s leadership.
As said earlier, if Captain Eyassu is wise he should jump out of the sinking ship now.
All but one of his staffers in Addis Ababa’s AFBC headquarters have already dived out of the dancing vessel, the latest one being Communication Directors Dawit Wasihun.
Whether Eyassu’s loyalists in BoD will also follow suit or sink with him in solidarity remains to be seen.
One glaring anomaly sticking out like a sore thumb in the low-key tournament was Guinea’s middleweight Mamadou Diallo being allowed to continue appearing in the competition despite being knocked out in his first fight by Tunisia’s Hamza Khazri.
If the organisers adhered to IBA’s knockout rule, Diallo was supposed to take a break.
But the merchants of impunity ignored the IBA KO rule and allowed Diallo to fight on. This gross misconduct is unacceptable.
Positively, the AFBC in partnership with IBA conducted a certification course for Star-1 to Star-3 level R&J and an International Technical Official (ITO) course. This is commendable. We wish the participants all the best as they await the results to know whether they have graduated to the next level.
