Finally the wheat has been sorted out from the chaff.
Africa will be represented by three boxers in the World Championships quarter-finals today featuring 52 bouts in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The three quarter-finalists are two Zambian Africa champions, flyweight Patrick Chinyemba (pictured right in Tuesday’s pre-quarters against Azerbaijan’s Masud Yusifzada) and lightweight Andrew Chilata, and Ghana’s bantamweight Mohammed Amadu.
Amadu Mohammed in action against George Malkontwa of Botswana
Stylish Chinyemba will be the first one in action against Spain’s European flyweight champion Martin Molina in the afternoon session ring B. He’ll step through the ropes in the second bout.
Amadu and Chilata will fight in the evening session ring B. The Ghanaian will touch gloves with 2021 World Championships bantamweight silver medallist Makhmud Sabyrkhan of Kazakhstan while Chilata battles Cuban pro boxer with two wins, one KO Erislandy Alvarez who caused an upset in his earlier fights with a 4-1 win over World Championships bronze medallist Alexy de la Cruz of Dominican Republic.
In a quick chat with Chinyemba this morning he said African fans should uncork their champagne bottles for their first medal today since the last one in 2017 Worlds in Hamburg.
Chinyemba, a man of few words said, “I will win.” Indeed he will. Even my crystal ball tells me the flashy Zambian boxer will punch his way to the semi-finals. He put up a classy display in Tuesday’s round of 16 to outpoint bearded Azerbaijan’s 2021 World Championships quarter-finalist Masud Yusifzada who did shadow boxing for the better part of the fight as he was unable to connect any good shot on the swift and nimble-footed Zambian.
One man who must be praying for Chinyemba’s victory is Barbados coach Laurence Hunte. He’s still very bitter after his boxer, Jabali Breedy’s 3-2 win over Molina was overturned in the review.
A fuming Hunte said the review system should be re-looked.
“Jabali would have convinced three of these judges he was the winner. Now what happens there’s an automatic review. In the past you could have protested the results but now they’ve stopped allowing protests,” Hunte was quoted as saying in nationnews.com.
He went on,” They came up with this decision that once there are three judges to two, they would go into an automatic review where another observer would actually step in and determine the winner.
“In this particular case that is what happened and that person awarded it to Spain. And we’re not allowed to protest because that is part of the system.”
Take it easy coach Hunte. Chinyemba will do a clean job for you this afternoon.
The two-week World Championships has now entered the crucial stages. It’s cheers for the winners so far and tears for the losers. That’s sports. You win some and lose some.
Thursday is a rest day followed by the semi-finals on Friday, May 12.
The finals will be fought in two sessions, the first one on Saturday, May 13 and the second one on Sunday, May 14.
Credit: NENEZ MEDIA SERVICES
You must be logged in to post a comment.