Ghana’s 20-year-old featherweight Samuel Takyi has scooped Africa’s first boxing medal by squeezing a 3-2 points victory over Columbia’s Ceiber David Avila in the Tokyo Olympics quarter-finals.
Takyi finished strongly in the third round against a game Avila to become Ghana’s fourth boxer to win a medal in the Olympic Games.
It’s in Tokyo that Ghana won their second Olympic medal in 1964 through light-welter Eddie Blay.
Takyi says he wants to surpass Blay’s achievement.
“I’m so happy to be in the semi-finals, I thank God for this big win, I’m aiming for the finals,” said the young warrior who’s in cloud nine and has one leg in the final.
Prince Amartey won Ghana’s last Olympic boxing medal – a bronze in the middleweight division – at the 1972 Munich Olympics with light-welter Clement Quartey winning the first one in the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Takyi made his international debut in last year’s Africa Olympic qualifiers in Dakar, Senegal, causing an upset by outpointing Morocco’s 2019 African Games champion Mohammed Hamout but lost in the semis to Zambia’s Evaristo Mulenga.
He gritted his teeth to beat tough Ugandan Isaac Kasembe in the third place box-off to book a place in the Tokyo Olympics.
Takyi is one of the two African boxers still in action in the Tokyo Olympics with Algeria’s female lightweight Imane Khelif who fights in Tuesday’s quarter-finals.
A total of 49 boxers from Africa qualified for the Tokyo Olympics but except from the two still in the ring, the rest have been swept by a strong Tsunami in Japan’s capital city.
Credited: John Nene
