A super duper show from David Pina as he makes history to win Cape Verde’s first ever Olympic boxing medal in Paris on Friday, August 2.
Pina scored a comfortable unanimous points victory over Zambia’s Patrick Chinyemba in the flyweight quarter-final and in process stormed the semi-finals to assure Africa of a bronze medal and a date with Uzbekistan’s world champion Hasanboy Dusmatov who squeezed a 3-2 win over Kazakhstan’s Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Saken Bibossinov.
It’s Cape Verde’s fourth appearance in the Olympics boxing tournament having made their debut in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Composed, relaxed and confident, Pina scored more effectively as he danced, bobbed and weaved Chinyemba’s punches. The Zambian was off-target for the better part of the three rounds. His major undoing was poor timing of his punches and was always in a hurry.
Pina’s win also earned him ample revenge over Chinyemba who beat the Cape Verdean boxer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics qualifiers in Senegal.
With that defeat, Zambia’s hopes of ending a 40-year boxing medal drought in the Olympics went up in smoke.
Chinyemba becomes the 20th African boxer to be eliminated from the Tokyo Olympics.
Pina, Morocco’s Khadija Mardi and Algeria’s Imane Khelif are now the only African boxers left in the competition.
For the 20 African boxers out, take note you win some and lose some. That’s the name of the game.
Credit: AFBC Communications
