RWANDA’S NATIONAL BOXING TEAM IS BACK AFTER 7 YEARS
▪️ Rwanda’s last appearance in an elite competition was during the 2018 Bingwa wa Mabingwa in Tanzania.
Rwanda’s national boxing team is back in the limelight.
They will be represented by six boxers in the Africa Zone 3 Championships in Nairobi from October 15-25.
This will be Rwanda’s first participation in an elite tournament since 2018 when they featured in the Bingwa wa Mabingwa competition in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Among the six boxers selected, it’s only bantamweight Valentin Ntabanganyimana who has been at a major international championships.
He took part in the 2023 Junior World Championships in the land-locked West Asian country of Armenia accompanied by Jean Claude Gatorano who is the head coach of the six boxers for Zone 3 event in Nairobi.
Ntabanganyimana put an impressive performance in losing on points to Kazakhstan’s Ramazan Orynbassar in the light bantamweight division.
He matched the Kazakhstan boxer punch for punch hardly showing any stage fright despite his first participation in an international competition.
In addition to bantamweight Ntabanganyimana, others in the team are brothers, featherweight Iranezeza Aime and light-welterweight Niyonzima Pacifique, light-middleweight Kalisa Frank, welterweight Hassan Murenzi and middleweight Patrick Ndayishimie who is a member of Inkuba Boxing Club together with the boxing brothers Aime and Pacifique. Ntabanganyimana , Kalisa and Murenzi are with The Real Boxing Club.
All the six boxers will be making their debut in an elite boxing tournament.
Head coach the experienced Jean Claude Gatorano will be assisted by Niyigena Olivier. The leader of delegation and team manager is Deogratius Wasswa.
Announcing the six boxers to represent Rwanda in the Zone 3 tournament, the President of the federation, Bashir Ntwari, said they’re in the rebuilding process and was optimistic the boxers will give a good account of themselves.
“As I mentioned here recently, this is a new era, and these are boxers we believe can represent us well, they’re all new names to many outside of Rwanda just like myself. The challenge ahead is big, but I’m very hopeful,” Ntwari told boxersworld.co.ke in a phone interview from Kigali.
Rwanda has yet to make an impression in boxing. Some of the country’s former top internationals are light-heavyweight Nsengiyumva Vincent and welterweight Nsabimana David both of whom represented the national team in the 2011 African Games in Maputo and 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The last time Rwanda took part in a continental event was at the 2014 Africa Youth Games in Gaborone, Botswana, where the late Cyiza Jean Pierre won a bronze medal in lightweight division.
“We decided to step back for a rebuilding process so that we can jump better,” former secretary-general of the Rwanda Boxing Federation Bigirimana Rafiki told boxersworld.co.ke
Bigirimana, who fell out with the former Rwanda Boxing Federation President Vick Kalisa, has played a big role in the ongoing revitalisation of boxing in Rwanda.
