Zambia’s national boxing team head coach, Wisdom Mudenda has expressed his satisfaction with the pre-Olympic Games training his boxer, Patrick Chinyemba, is undergoing at Creps of Nancy Training Centre in France.
In today’s five-round sparring schedule, Chinyemba is paired against 2022 World Youth Championships bronze medallist, Puerto Rico’s Lopez De Jesus, the son of a former international Juan Manuel López, a 2004 Olympian and former three-division world champion in pro boxing.
“The pre-Games training is excellent. The main difference between the current training camp and Africa is that this one is more advanced than Africa in terms training equipment and mainly quality of boxers who are here,” said Mudenda in an interview from their training base in Nancy.
“We have world champions, Olympic champions, Olympic medalists from around the world training under one gym, it’s totally different from Africa, and Zambia is the only African country here,” he revealed.
Mudenda dispelled fears of over-training in Nancy.
“The issue of over training cannot be experienced here reason being that we have high profiled coaches who very much understand periodization principles.
“They organise training into cycles from objectives, tasks, and concepts. The ultimate goal of periodization is to prevent over training and optimize peak performance.”
Mudenda explains the high profiled coaches conducting the pre-Games training have meticulously planned the
16-day training.
“We have picked five days specifically for intense sparring sessions. Once done with rigorous sparring sessions, the intensity and volume will be lowered in order for the peak performance to rise. It’s more like Olympic Games rehearsal being done here, what will remain is weight making and shaping up.”
Mudenda is grateful to the Zambia Boxing Federation and the National Olympic Committee for enabling them attend the pre-Games training camp.
“I thank Zambia Boxing Federation President Dan Chiteule and his executive for coming up with this initiative prior to the Olympic Games, not forgetting the main sponsors, the Alfred Foloko-led National Olympic committee of Zambia, who bought us air tickets, paid for our accommodation and ensured that we are not lacking in anything as we prepare for the Games.”
In addition to Chinyemba, the other boxer representing Zambia is flyweight Margret Tembo, a minimumweight gold medallist at the 2022 Africa Elite Championships in Maputo, Mozambique.
Tembo is among the four lucky African boxers who got wild cards under the nine universality spots. Others are Cape Verde’s Africa welterweight champion Ivanusa Moreira, Mozambican Commonwealth Games light-middleweight silver medallist Tiago Muxanga and Mali’s 2019 African Games featherweight silver medallist Marine Fatoumata Camara.
Credit: AFBC Communications
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