Black Bombers To Train In Azerbaijan

AHEAD OF AFRICA OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION IN MOROCCO

The National Amateur Boxing Team, the Black Bombers will depart Accra on Wednesday, 4th April, 2012 for Baku, Azerbaijan for a two-week joint training programme with their Azerbaijan counterparts as part of preparations for the Africa Olympic qualifying tournament scheduled to take place in Casablanca, Morocco from April 27 to May 6, 2012.

According to Ambassador Ray Quarcoo, this training tour was the result of fruitful discussions he held with the Azerbaijani Minister for Youth and Sports, Honorable Azad Rahimov on the possibility of a joint training programme during his visit to Azerbaijan for the October 2011 AIBA World Championships.

He further disclosed that the bigger picture driving the Federation’s actions is the desire to build a well disciplined and formidable team with the requisite exposure and technical skills ahead of the 2012 Olympics, 2013 World Championships, and others beyond.

The team building exercise which began last year, is seeking to foster teamwork and create a work environment that values discipline and collaboration; where all the administrators, technical men and boxers understand and believe that thinking, planning and taking decisions are best done collectively.

After a series of training programmes/tournaments: viz: a four (4) month non-residential training program, “Road to Casablanca” (a night of boxing staged every last Saturday of each month), Ghana/Benin reciprocal tournament, Ghana/Gabon Tournament, “Road to London” Training camp (participated there-in by two boxers etc.) which started in the last quarter of 2011, the technical team and the Executive Committee has identified and shortlisted some boxers for this training tour.

It must be noted that Azerbaijan is a very successful boxing nation with modern boxing training installations/facilities, as well as highly qualified boxing trainers. The country has already qualified five (5) boxers for the Olympics via the World Series Boxing and the World Championship, with yet another qualification tournament in hand.

The under listed nine boxers have been selected by the Federation to participate in the Training programme:

Name Weight Category

Sulemanu Tetteh - Light Fly (49Kg)

Duke Micah - Fly (52Kg)

Isaac Dogboe - Bantam (56Kg)

Benjamin Lamptey - Light Weight (60Kg)

Musah Rahman Lawson - Light Welter (64Kg)

Azumah Mohammed - Welter (69Kg)

Lerrone Richards - Middle (75Kg)

David Bawa - Light Heavy (81Kg)

Maxwell Amponsah - Heavy (91Kg)

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the Team will return to Ghana on 18th April to wrap up preparations before enplaning to Morocco on 27th April, 2012 for the qualifiers.

SIGNED

Dominic Kankam

Secretary General