Botswana’s national boxing team head coach Thebe Setlalekgosi said today Cape Verde’s Africa welterweight champion, Ivanusa Moreira, was robbed of a deserved victory in her last 16 bout against Belgium’s Oshin Derieuw who won 3-2.
Moreira is among the three African boxers who lost their fights in the last session on Thursday, August 1. Others are Algeria’s flyweight Roumaysa Boualam beaten 5-0 by Aira Villegas of Philippines and Alcinda Dos Santos of Mozambique who went down by a similar score of 5-0 to China’s world champion Yang Liu.
“Moreira in my opinion was robbed, she won all rounds but the judges gave her the first two rounds,” said a fuming Setlalekgosi.
“I was actually very impressed with her work rate, of course it’s the Olympics all boxers are there to win. She did very well to be honest, she was very strong the first two rounds, the last round was very close.”
With the three boxers out, Africa remains with only five boxers in the competition. They are flyweights Zambia’s Patrick Chinyemba and Cape Verde’s David Pina who meet in the quarter-finals on Friday, August 2, Tunisia’s featherweight Khouloud Hlimi, Morocco’s Khadija Mardi and Algeria’s Imane Khel
Credit: AFBC Communications