GAABA’s City Rocks for Nigeria tournament in March

By Prince Dornu-Leiku

The Greater Accra Amateur Boxing Association’s quest to keep their boxers active and competitive gets into full swing when six boxers travel to Nigeria for a West African boxing extravaganza from March 1 to 4.

The GAABA boxing team, called the City Rocks, are expected to depart the country by the 27th February for the international boxing friendly championship dubbed ‘Fight for gold 2011’ at the Asaba Indoor Sports Hall Stadium, Delta State, Nigeria.

Organised by Bamay1 Sports Entertainment division of Bamay1 Ventures in association with Delta State authorities, the tournament is expected to involve competitors from West African neighbours Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria among others. For GAABA, the invitation for the tournament in Nigeria couldn’t have come at a better time as it is the perfect opportunity for the boys to gain exposure and experience to be ready for national assignment at anytime.

“It’s best for us since we are planning to have more of these competitions for our boys because we want them to always be active since Greater Accra provides the national teams with more than 90% of boxers. We have so many of such competitions and tournaments to participate in within the year so we will use this to assess how it will go. I will be there myself to give the boys moral support,” GAABA 2nd Vice Chairman Wallace Nii Tackie-Komme explained the significance of the impending trip to Nigeria.

Hon. Tackie-Komme has also confirmed that the newly christened City Rocks have invitations for boxing tournaments in UK, Australia, California in the USA and Denmark. In fact the Danish trip is billed for the end of March meaning the tournament in Nigeria will also serve as preparations for the journey to the Scandinavian country for the same programme.

GAABA will select the six boxers for the trip to Nigeria from the pool of those selected from last year’s hugely successful Homowo boxing tournament. GAABA PRO and Acting Secretary Alex Ntiamoah-Boakye has backed the City Rocks to do well and claim the top prizes of gold, silver or bronze in addition to physical incentives on offer in Nigeria.

“Our boxers are good because of the exposure and experience we make sure they get through these programmes. These competitions are to prepare the boxers for international competitions when they eventually get into the Black Bombers or even when they turn professional,” Mr. Ntiamoah-Boakye said.