Six Ghanaian amateur boxers will leave for the United States of America next month for the International Amateur Boxing Associations (AIBA) boxing championship scheduled for Chicago.
Captain of the Black Bombers, welterweight Bastir Samir, and colleagues middleweight Ahmed Saraku, light flyweight Manyo Plange, bantamweight Issah Samir, featherweight Frederick Lawson and heavyweight Awusone Yekini will leave by October 17 for the October 23 to November 3 championships which will be a qualifying platform for Olympic Games boxing.
Gold and silver medallists at the Games will qualify for the Olympics, while 'good' boxers who miss the top medals through 'ill luck' will be considered for qualification.
According to R.O. Lamptey, General Secretary of the Ghana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA), the Chicago championships will be the first qualifiers towards participation in boxing at next year's Olympics Games to be held in Beijing, China.
Two more qualifying opportunities to be fixed later he said, would be communicated to national associations by the International Olympic Committee.
The six boxers qualified for the world championships on two fronts — the African championships in Madagascar, and the All Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria.
In Madagascar Bastir Samir (gold), Saraku (silver), Plange (gold) and Lawson (silver) made it, while Issah Samir (silver) joined them through the path of the All Africa games.
Indeed, all five were silver medallists in Algiers after losing their final fights in their respective divisions and would have reached the world championships all the same even if they had not qualified from the Madagascar championships earlier.
Awusoni's qualification could be divine-inspired. The heavyweight lost his quarter-finals bout in Algiers, and upon a protest by the Ghanaian officials, the officials were sanctioned though the result did not change. Then it was decided he qualified to participate in Chicago for suffering “unfair” judgement.
Story by Michael Quaye
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