NORTH AFRICAN BOXERS DOMINATE SCHOOL GAMES
▪️ Kenya, DR Congo and Ghana the only Sub-Saharan African countries in the finals
The inaugural ANOCA African Games boxing finals start today (July 31) with the female pugilists in action in Annaba, Algeria .
Six bouts are in the card with DR Congo the only non-North African country represented.
Featherweight Pambu Phoba Kerene battles Algeria’s Bahri Besma.
The rest of the bouts will be a North African affair. Algeria leads with six boxers followed by Tunisia four and Egypt one.
In Friday’s (August 1) boys finals, Ghana and Kenya are the only Sub-Saharan African countries represented.
Algeria is ahead with eight finalists, Tunisia five, Egypt four, Ghana two and Kenya one.
While they’ve been complaints of biased officiating favouring Algerian boxers, not all of them were favoured.
The Algerians have proved themselves in the ring even at the elite stage.
Their late boxer Hocine Soltani and the
controversial Imane Khelif remain Africa’s latest Olympic gold medallists with Soltani winning gold in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and Imane in 2024 in Paris though debatable after failing the gender eligibility test conducted by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
Morocco have shown their muscle winning the African Championships twice in a row in 2023/2024 and their female boxers twice winning world titles through heavyweight Khadija Mardi and bantamweight Widad Bertal.
The upshot of this fine show is as a result of North African governments investing more on boxing development, modern infrastructure and exposing their boxers.
The Sub-Saharan African countries should now wake up and smell the coffee.
