Sports Minister bemoans Black Bombers performance in Yaounde

Ghana’s Youth and Sports Minister Nii Lante Vanderpuye expressed disappointment at the Black Bombers inability to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games at the All-Africa Qualifiers last week. Speaking to the press at the Accra Sports Stadium on Monday, Vanderpuye was upbeat in spite of the national boxing’s team disheartening performance. The Black Bombers now face the prospect of observing the Olympics from afar for the first time in 12 years.

All is not lost, however. Despite their failure in Yaounde, Cameroon, the Bombers will have another opportunity at the AOB Final World Olympic Qualification tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“I think Ghanaians are all disappointed, but they have another opportunity to go to Azerbaijan for another qualification,” Vanderpuye said.

The nine amateur boxers that took part in the All-Africa Qualifiers all came up short. Welterweight Azumah Mohameed and bantamweight Abdul Wahid Omar both reached the semi-finals, where they were both ousted. Subsequent losses in the run-off bouts sealed their team’s doom.

“If they go [to Azerbaijan] and do well, fine, but before they will go we have to be convinced about the fact that their performance in Yaounde wasn’t because they are not good or the team wasn’t prepared well,” Vanderpuye continued. “For whichever reason, they didn’t quality.

“[The Bombers] should be able to convince us that they will do better in Azerbaijan than they did in Yaounde. And I should know the factors that will make them do better in Azerbaijan.They should be able to tell us,” he added.

Prior to the championship, the camping of the boxers became a major issue as they were thrown of the National Hockey Pitch for failing to pay the needed camping fees. This caused them to miss valuable training time ahead of last week’s Qualifiers.