Boxers off to Yaounde at last after 11th hour rescue

The Ministry of Sports came to the rescue of the cash-strapped Kenyan boxing team at the 11th hour as it finally left for Yaoundé, Cameroon for the 2016 African Olympics Qualifiers on Tuesday morning.

After arriving at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the squad of 13- ten male and three female- pugilists were forced to endure and anxious wait ahead of their scheduled 11am local time (+3GMT) departure since they did not have money to pay for accommodation.

With the trip in danger of aborting despite having their tickets paid, a Ministry official, Joel Atuti accompanied by accountants rushed to the airport to deliver the necessary cash to allow the boxers to check in for their trip that has been fraught with hardships since they reported to camp on February 21.

“The ministry of sports is not committed to taking up their responsibility properly, they wait until the last minute and start running up and down.

“I associate the last minute issues with corruption. Behind there you don’t know what they have allocated to you, personally I associate that with mega corruption,” Boxing Association of Kenya (BAK) chairman, John Kameta, who was at the airport to see off the fighters, claimed.

“We are grateful we are at the airport and we are now sure we are going. We are with team and the Ministry has sent a representative to bring money that will be used for the first two days,” the boxing chief had earlier said as they waited for the money to arrive.

Since the team went to camp, Kameta has been on the warpath with the Ministry, threatening to sue Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Hassan Wario, last week as their confrontations turned ugly.

“As at now, I have five federations and looking for another three or four federations so that next week we can all make that place very uncomfortable for Dr. Hassan,” Kameta threatened at the time.

Before that, he organized three planned protests at the Ministry head quarters in Nairobi that he subsequently called off in an effort to force the Government to cough up the money.

At the centre of the argument was the Ksh20m Wario reportedly promised BAK when they announced their partnership with betting firm, SportPesa on January 23 to cater for the national boxing league.

Following the trials in Mombasa, the selected team stayed without training for a fortnight and when they finally converged in Nairobi, they could not afford sparring partners as the cash crunch continued to bite.

The boxers who were based at the Kenya Defence Forces camp at Nairobi’s Jamhuri Showground were accompanied by five coaches and the Government officials.

The BAK boss decried the number of trainers insufficient since the three professional boxers in the team have a coach leaving the remaining 10 sharing two.

The AIBA pro trio namely Nickson Abaka (middleweight), Benson Gicharu (bantamweight) and Ravton Okwiri were handed direct slots to the Kenya team 2016 Rio Olympic Qualifiers in Yaoundé.

Kameta absolved the National Olympic Committee-Kenya of any blame in the boxing ring circus with the sport the only other discipline outside athletics to bag the country an Olympics gold medal.

The late Robert Wangila Napunyi stunned the world when he became the first African to win a boxing gold medal at the Seoul 1988 Games.

Report by Paul Kimani

 KENYA SQUAD

MEN 

Peter Mungai (light fly), Simon Mulinge (fly), Benson Gicharu (bantam), Nick Okoth (light), Victor Odhiambo (light welter), Rayton Okwiri/John Kyalo (welter), Nickson Abaka/Edwin Okongo (middle), Humphrey Ochieng’ (light heavy), Elly Ajowi (heavy) and Fred Ramogi (super heavy)

 WOMEN

Christine Ongare (fly), Teresia Wanjiru (light), Elizabeth Akinyi (middle)