A total of 14 boxers from seven weight categories presently camped at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos are scheduled to hit Dakar, Senegal for the African qualifiers of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The Secretary General of Nigeria Boxing Federation (NBF), Dapo Akinyele, said the body has commenced camping for its athletes ahead of the Africa Olympics qualifying bouts in Dakar,
Akinyele said the federation had a mandate to ensure that Nigeria qualified for the Paris 2024 boxing events.
“We have a mandate to ensure that we are in the Olympics this time around after we missed out on the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.
“We have gathered our best athletes for this camp and we expect results from them, this time around we must put all machinery in place to ensure qualification.
“Nigeria is not lacking in terms of talents, we have them in abundance; not forgetting that we have history in boxing with medals in boxing events at the Olympics.
“We will do all it takes to ensure that we succeed this time, but first thing is that we want to qualify for the Olympics first,” he said.
The National Coach of NBF, Anthony Konyegwechie, also said that the boxers were in high spirits ahead of the Olympic qualifiers.
“We are training well ahead of the qualifiers and the boxers are all responding well. The spirit in the team is high.
“We do have morning and evening sessions. The morning session starts from 7.00 a.m. to 9.00 a.m., while the evening session starts from 4.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.
“We have two camps, one here in Nigeria and another one in the United Kingdom, which has two weight categories for Male, 92 kg and Female, 75 kg.
“The weight categories in Nigeria are female, 50 kg, 57 kg, and 60 kg, while the male has 57 kg, 63.5 kg, 71 kg, and 80 kg,” he said.
Konyegwechie restated the need to support the athletes, adding that adequate support for the team would enhance their performances.
“We need more support for the boxers, they need to be well motivated ahead of the qualifiers in Dakar, Senegal. We need some modern equipment for training.
“Nothing should derail our ambition of attending the Paris 2024 because we have no excuse based on our pedigree in Africa, especially with the recent bout in Yaounde, Cameroon where Nigeria came 7th.
“At the Africa Boxing Championship in Cameroon, we were able to secure one gold, one silver and two bronze medals with short preparations; now, we have to perform better,” he said.
The boxers are having their training inside the Gymn hall of the National Stadium Surulere Lagos.
Eighteen-Eleven Media