Cameroon’s national boxing team head coach Alain Didier Ngatcha has unleashed his soldiers for the DR Congo battle.
“My boxers will make Kinshasa tremble, we’re fully armed now to take on the best in Africa,” roared Didier as he announced his team of nine boxers comprising six men and three women for the Africa Elite Men and Women Boxing Championships in Kinshasa from October 14-27.
Missing from the team are the two gold medallists in last year’s Africa Championships in Yaounde, flyweight Reine Ngoune and super-heavyweight Zacharie Mvogo.
“They’re having urgent personal commitments, so they’ve excused themselves,” Didier told me in a telephone interview from Yaounde.
He however said the team he has selected, though inexperienced, is psyched up for battle and not shaken by the big names.
Five of the nine boxers were in Cameroon’s team last year with four of them winning medals that enabled the Central African country finish fourth overall with two gold, two silver and eight bronze medals.
The four medallists in the team are: women silver medallist Tsimi Victorine Omengue and bronze medallist Keuye Bernadette who lost in the light-heavyweight semi-finals to DR Congo’s Marie-Joelle Mwika while Bernadette was beaten in the finals by DR Congo’s Tekasala Malewu.
The men’s medallists are minumweight Marcial Wouang, a losing minimumweight finalist to South Africa’s Lubabalo Lusizi and flyweight bronze medallist Mouhaman Issouhou who was beaten by Morocco’s e eventual gold medallist Said Mortaji. Promising Mohamed Oumara lost in the round of 16 to DR Congo’s Mbaya Mulumba in the light-welterweight division. Oumara has now moved up to welterweight.
Newcomers in the Cameroon team are women’s minimumweight Doriane Nyangono and in men, light-welterweight Saagman Minko and cruiserweight Georges Beb.
In last year’s tournament, Cameroon were well in contention for a podium finish with 12 boxers in the semi-finals but only fourvmade it to the finals to the chagrin of coach Ngatcha.
“There was a little disorder within my team, now everything is okay,” said Ngatcha on the Yaounde disappointment.
The nine Cameroon boxers for Africa Elite Championships:
Women:
48kg : Nyangono Doriane
75kg: Omengue Tsimi Victorine
+81kg :Keuye Bernadette.
Men:
48kg: Wouang Marcial.
51kg: Issouhou Mouhamane
63.5kg: Minko Saagman Steve
67kg Oumarou Mohamed
86kg: Beb Georges
92kg: Merlin Tamba
Credit: AFBC Communications
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