Ghana’s Participation In Aiba Youth Boxing Championship

Outcome Of Ghana’s Participation In Aiba Youth World Boxing Championship In Baku, Azerbaijan

By the kind courtesy of the National Sports Council and the Sports Ministry, a 19-member contingent made up of 12 boxers and 7 officials led by Mr Ray Quarcoo, Chairman of the Ghana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA), departed Accra for Baku, Azerbaijan, on the 18th of April, 2010, on an invitation to participate in the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championship scheduled for 20th April – 3rd May, 2010.

The World Championship involved 460 boxers from 90 AIBA member countries, including Ghana.

A maximum of 44 out of the 460 Boxers were bid to qualify straight from the Championship to the 1st Youth Olympic Games to be held in Singapore in August 2010. 22 others were to qualify later by AIBA Wild Card through Boxer’s member nations’ National Olympic Committee wild card applications.

At the close of the Championship, all the African teams, including Ghana, failed to reach the medal zone (semi-finals) to book a place in the 44 straight qualifiers.

Ghana, however, proved to be among the best 4 African teams (Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt inclusive) in the Championship. This was by virtue of the fact that a Ghanaian boxer, Azumah Mohammed, apart from beating an African champion (Algerian) and a Russian, remained unbeaten till he reached the quarter-final stage where he lost narrowly to a German 2-1 on points.

Medically, Team Ghana did not record any serious injury or ailment and all the boxers passed the AIBA medical screening as well.

Eventually, Ghana placed 38th out of 90 countries and only exited at the quarter-final stage. There were no knockouts and each Ghanaian boxer battled till the final bell.

In another development, Ghana was present at the World Series Boxing (WSB) Test Event held at the Sagan Olympiya Idman Kompleksi in Baku, Azerbaijan. The WSB is a new boxing series which involves 5 bouts across all weight categories with 5 rounds of 3 minutes each. In this event, there is no use of head guards and vests; moreover, winners and their runners-up are awarded huge cash prizes with same for their coaches and managers. It was a good motivation for our boxers, all of whom were convinced their future in amateur boxing would be quite secure with the WSB.

In general, Ghana’s participation was beneficial because, apart from lobbying for the approval of Ghana’s AIBA grant application, our boxers and officials gained rich experience for future engagements.

Again, for the first time in the history of Ghana Amateur Boxing, a Ghanaian, Mr. S.K. Antwi, an AIBA certified Referee judge was presented and admitted to sit for the 1st AIBA Technical Delegates Examination during the Championship.

Mr. Antwi was one of two African delegates among the 20 candidates from the whole world who sat for the examination. The second African candidate was Dr. Belslaam, president of African Boxing Confederation from Algeria.

The examination, which is the highest in World Amateur Boxing, involved 17 pages question papers and the pass marks was fixed at 85%. However, any candidate who scored between 85% and 70% would be accepted as AIBA Technical Delegate for Confederation, but any marks below 70% would be considered as fail.

Ghana is awaiting the result of its sole candidate, Mr. S.K. Antwi , an AIBA Referee/Judge.

The team has since returned home.

SIGNED:

KWAME AMPONFI JNR SECRETARY GENERAL – GABA Tel: (+233) 244-819096 E-mail: ghamateurboxing@yahoo.com amponfijnr@yahoo.com