Ghana’s national amateur boxing team, the Black Bombers held a media workout session in Accra on Saturday ahead of their trip to Dakar for the African Qualifiers for Tokyo 2020.
A total of fifteen boxers trained at the Bukom Boxing Arena under the supervision of their head coach, Ofori Asare.
The boxers were taken through drills and other workouts to put them in shape for the tournament which commences on February 20 to 29, 2020 at the Dakar International Expo Centre, Diamniadio.
Ten out of the 15 boxers will make the trip to Senegal in a bid to qualify Ghana to the Olympics this year.
The team started training three months ago at the Accra Sports Stadium and were later moved to the renovated Bukom Boxing Arena Gym where they’ve had residential camping for weeks.
Coach Ofori Asare who qualified four Ghanaian boxers for the last Olympics believes the boxers are ready to rumble.
“We keep on trying to bring up the best in the boxers because we are close to the competition. We’ve gone through all the necessary technical aspect we have to go through. They are physically and psychologically ready,” coach Ofori Asare told the media.
However, the Ghana Boxing Federation President, George Lamptey, expressed disappointment in the government, especially the Sports Ministry for not helping in eliminating or reducing the financial constraints of the boxers and team.
He said, “As we are about to embark on this journey which is an Olympic qualification, the ministry has to cater for this budget including air fair, accommodation among others,” but they didn’t. The Ghana Olympic Committee gave us $8,000 for preparation but we used $6,000 for accommodation and we are left with $6,700 to pay.”.”
George Lamptey hailed other private entities for coming to the aid of the boxers in buying tickets to Dakar. The team will fly out the country for the tournament on Monday, February 17, 2020.
