NINE AFRICAN BOXERS REAP $195,000 IN SERBIA WORLDS
Lucky Liz Andiego laughing all the way to the bank Ksh 1,296,700 richer
It was a rich harvest for nine African boxers who minted a total of $195,000 in the one-week Women’s World Boxing Championships in Nis, Serbia.
Morocco’s newly-crowned world bantamweight champion Widad Bertal topped with $100,000 for winning gold in the finals. That’s a huge sum of money which if well invested will make a big difference in Bertal’s life and her family. At 25 years, Bertal still has a lot of gas in her to continue making more money in the IBA tournaments.
In second place on Africa’s top earners in Serbia is Morocco’s Africa light-heavyweight champion Hasnae Larti who made $25,000 for winning bronze. That’s the money to be paid to the two losing semi-finalists in each of the 12 weight categories.
Then we have the seven losing African quarter-finalists including the luckiest of them all Kenya’s Liz Andiego who received a bye to the quarters for the third time in a row. Unfortunately, this also happened to her in the 2022 and 2023 Women’s World Championships.
This time around, the 38-year-old Andiego was even luckier than in the past two Women’s Worlds, for she benefitted from IBA’s newly-introduced prize money for quarter-finalists.
At the current exchange rates, that’s Kshs1,296,700 earned in less than five minutes by Andiego, the face of female boxing in East Africa. I hope big organisations such as Safaricom and Sportspesa will now use her image as an Ambassador of women’s boxing in the region. Automatically this will enable Andiego to earn more money and to be a shining example to upcoming female boxers.
In an interview with boxersworld.co.ke from Serbia, Andiego said she’s now reaping the fruits of her resilience, perseverance and determination.
“First I thank God for this far I have come, it’s through hard work, determination and consistency over the years,” said Andiego, and went on: “It’s not in vain it’s paying off now, it’s now 15 years since my first world championships, not giving up and pushing on every year.
“Thanks to IBA for introducing prize money for the lower stages because it motivates boxers and changes their lives. I’m very grateful to IBA especially for enabling quarter-finalists earn prize money for the first time.”
In addition to Andiego, the other six African quarter-finalists who earned prize money are four Moroccans minimumweight Rabab Cheddar, flyweight Imane El Azami, welterweight Mounia Toutire and light-middleweight Saida Lahmida, Sierra Leone’s lightweight Josefien Betist and Nigeria’s London-based middleweight Patricia Mbata.
The prize money for all the boxers in Serbia will be wired to their bank accounts by the IBA.
