I will win Ghana's first Olympic gold medal - 19-year-old Samuel Takyi

Samuel Takyi, a 19-year-old amateur boxer is optimistic of winning Ghana’s first gold medal at the Olympic Games.

Takyi who hails from Bukom, an area which has produced most of Ghana’s best boxing champions earned qualification to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games after fighting for a 3rd place spot at the Olympics African Qualifiers.

The young pugilist who has since begun preparations and training for the Games believes his trainers will put him in the best of shape to ensure he achieves his target of winning a gold medal despite the postponement of the games due to the global pandemic.

“I’m going to the Olympic Games to bring gold to Ghana which will be the first in history. I hope my coaches train me well and give me good preparations to the Olympic Games than we had in Senegal,” Takyi told TV3 in an interview.

The 19-year-old who is one of the two Ghanaian boxers to have qualified for the games disclosed that, his secret training put him ahead of his peers in the journey to qualification.

Takyi said, “I’m happy to qualify for the Olympic Games. I trained very hard in Ghana and our preparation was very good. We trained in Senegal as well but I had hope that I will qualify to the Olympic Games so I trained secretly in Senegal that is why I qualified to the Olympics.”

Like many local boxers who dropped out of school to commit their entire life to the sport, Takyi has dropped his pens and books at the age of 17 to focus on his career and shortly got a call up to join the nations national amateur boxing team, the Black Bombers.

Like many young boxers, Takyi idolizes Ike Quartey and hopes to be greater than his mentor.

“I want to be like Ike Quartey, I want to do more than him. I look up to Ike Quartey, Azumah Nelson, Richard Commey and Isaac Dogboe. I hope to do more than what they did.”

Coach Suleman Korley described his chap as a disciplined boxer who is committed to his work and has lots of potentials.

“We are taking every training easy because of what happened. The courage I have in Takyi is higher than anybody here because I can see a lot of potential in him. After all, he is very humble in training, whatever you tell him to do he does,” Coach Suleman said.

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