Bombers bombed out of Rio Games
For the first time in two decades there will be no Ghanaian representative in boxing at the Rio Olympics in August, following the failure by Ghanaian boxers to qualify for the Games.
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At the Olympic qualifiers in the Camerounian city of Yaounde, all eight boxers who made up the Black Bombers, including one female, failed to clinch qualification tickets for the summer Olympics.
At the weekend, the nation’s only two remaining Olympic hopefuls, Azumah Mohammed and Abdul Wahid Omar, lost out to their Algerian and Morrocan counterparts in the third and fourth qualification berths.
Omar lost by a unanimous decision to Mohammed Hamout of Morocco, while Azumah was beaten by Kedache Zohir of Algeria also by a unanimous decision.
At the 2012 Olympics in London, Ghana was represented by five boxers — Isaac Dogboe, Duke Micah, Maxwell Amponsah, David Bawa and Azumah Mohammed.
Boxing has been the marquee sport for the country since the history of the Olympics. Three of the nation’s four medals ever won in the Olympics came from boxing.
Clement ‘Ike’ Quartey Snr took silver in the Rome Olympic in 1960, becoming the first Black African to win an Olympic medal, and four years later Eddy Blay secured bronze for the country at the Tokyo Games before Prince Amartey came home with another bronze in Munich in 1972.
The nation’s only medal in Olympics was in football in 1992 in Barcelona.
Meanwhile, former Bombers coach Ofori Asare, has told the Graphic Sports a holistic approach of upgrading the skills and knowledge of coaches, referees and boxing officials by an international certified body like AIBA was needed if the country was to take boxing seriously.
He expressed with shock as to how three AIBA courses to upgrade the skills of coaches and referees were held in Lome, Yammoussoukro and Yaounde, but boxing coaches in the country and officials failed to attend the free course.
He called for a renewed technical direction in amateur boxing to ameliorate Ghana’s decline in the sport which was once a national past time and gave the country dignified international recognition.