🥊NENEZ BOXING ARCHIVE: Tension before departure to Bangkok as Modesty Napunyi Oduori leads protest at Camp David

🥊NENEZ BOXING ARCHIVE:

Tension before departure to Bangkok as Modesty Napunyi Oduori leads protest at Camp David.

Kenya’s “Five-Man Army” team may have shaken the world by winning the I981 King’s Cup boxing tournament but very few fans and followers of the sport are aware that the exclusion of three boxers from Kenya’s team ignited tension and bitterness between the boxers and officials of the Amateur Boxing Association of Kenya (ABA).

Owing to insufficient funds, the chairman of the Amateur Boxing Association of Kenya (ABA), Major Marsden Madoka visited the boxers at Breweries Rest House nicknamed Camp David to inform them about their decision to drop three pugilists from the team.

Madoka told the boxers they have decided to drop light-flyweight John “Poison” Kamau, light-welterweight Ali “Ojukwu” Athumani and light-heavyweight Wandera “Power” Oyolo due to insufficient funds because it was the ABA funding the trip. Officials were not spared either with trainer Peter Morris, Richard Mwangi and Captain Trevor Hill both of whom were to travel as referees and judges also axed from the team.

Bantamweight Hussein “Juba” Khalili, featherweight and captain Modesty Napunyi “Nappu” Oduori, lightweight Isaiah “Danicho” Ikhoni, welterweight Kamau “Pipino” Wanyoike and heavyweight James “Demosh” Omondi were the five boxers selected for the annual King’s Cup tournament.

Kenya was a regular participant in this prestigious event since 1978 when they made their debut.

The Kenya team of eight boxers were putting up at Camp David and training at the Tusker Village Hall under coach Peter Mwarangu and trainer Peter Morris.

No sooner had Madoka left Camp David than the boxers met under captain Napunyi and decided they would not travel to Bangkok unless the three boxers dropped were reinstated.

“We felt it was unfair for our colleagues to be left behind after training together, we decided we’ll not go to Bangkok,” Napunyi told me in an interview.

Wanyoike did not mince his words on their decision. “Our decision was in solidarity with our comrades, we were so bitter and told Mwarangu about it,” said Wanyoike. “Mwarangu tried his best telling us to change our decision but we stayed put.”

Tension was high at Camp David with just a few days left to departure. Madoka had already been informed about the boxers’ decision to skip the Bangkok tournament. He was shocked, and an angry Madoka – then head of Human Resources at Breweries – summoned the boxers to his office.

He explained to the boxers their financial situation and that they would have preferred the whole team to travel but it was not possible. The boxers still insisted they will not travel without their three colleagues dropped.

Madoka was now getting furious and read them the riot act. “I told them if they don’t go to Bangkok I will inform their respective employers they have refused to work,” Madoka would tell me later recalling the tension that preceded the departure.

“These boys don’t know how we struggle to fund some of these trips, the government funds big international events like the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and the African Games, we treated that as sabotage,” said Madoka.

Napunyi and Wanyoike were employed by Kenya Prisons, Demosh was with the Army while Khalili and Ikhoni were employees of Breweries.

The meeting ended acrimoniously without any agreement. As they left the Breweries headquarters building at Ruaraka, Mwarangu again spoke to the boxers persuading them to rethink their decision to skip the tournament.

Ali Athumani decided to chip in also to resolve the stalemate. “I spoke to my teammates and told them not to worry about us, we had accepted the decision of the ABA and we were not bitter so it’s better they go to Bangkok,” my good friend Athumani told me.

Eventually the five boxers rescinded their decision and accepted to represent the country in Bangkok. A smiling Mwarangu rushed to Madoka’s office to share the good news.

In Bangkok, the five Kenyans shocked the world, winning the King’s Cup with three gold medals by Napunyi, Ikhoni and Wanyoike while Khalili settled for a silver medal with Demosh the only one to return home without a medal.

Napunyi and Demosh have since passed on, Ikhoni is in Nairobi, Khalili back to Uganda and Wanyoike, whom we regularly speak on phone, is at his rural home in Komothai, Kiambu County. Madoka is at home in Taita-Taveta County while Mwarangu and Morris also passed on.

Photos courtesy of Nation