It was an exciting and busy day at the Dakar Arena where male boxers from 22 nations faced each other in a total of 21 bouts across afternoon and evening sessions.
The opening fight on Ring B for the Men’s Featherweight was also the fastest: Musa CHAM of Gambia beat the Cameroonian, Ignas Aristide Ronaldo TCHOUTA MBIANDA in just 52 seconds; Mbianda reporting an unintentional but bad wound on his cheekbone. On the other ring in the same weight category, Nathan LUNATA NKOSI of DR Congo scored an easy win against Swaziland’s 21 year old, Zweli DLAMINI.
Later in the evening, Moroke MOKHOTHO (LES) benefited from a split decision with a 3:2 victory in the blue corner against the Tunisian, Bilel MHAMDI. And the last fight in the Featherweight category ended 5:0 in favour of the Angolan Pedro Manuel GOMES who powered past his Tanzanian rival, Mlingwa Boniphace KAJI.
Men’s Welterweight Bouts
Tswiige MMUSI (BOT) didn’t have a lot of difficulty defeating Yannick MITOUMBA MBEMY from Gabon with a clean 5:0 victory. Zambia’s Stephen ZIMBA (ZAM) also proceeded to the next round by the same winning margin against Munjanye SNOWDEN (MWI).
Ring B saw a tussle between two North African nations but it was the Egyptian Omar Elsayed Ragab ELAWADY ELA who prevailed over the Tunisian Ahmed MEJRI. In the blue corner, Freeman MABVONGWE (ZIM) produced a winning performance against Nestor NDUWARUGIRA (BDI).
During the day’s second session on the same ring, the young Angolan Nafital Alfonso GOMA showed great resolve; despite being knocked down by Libya’s Dawku Asim Salih AMHIMMID, Goma won the bout in round 2 via an RSC decision with a knockdown of his own.
Other results from the evening session:
Thabiso DLAMINI (SWZ) vs Tounkara MADALA (MLI) 5:0
Mesfin BIRU KERALAH (ETH) vs Bassole Brice ROMARIC (BUR) 5:0
Jessie LARTEY (GHA) vs Mohamed ABOUBACAR (COM) 5:0
Men’s Heavyweight Debut
A split decision of 3:2 decided the first Heavyweight bout in favour of Barry IBRAHIMA SORY (GUI) over his opponent David Bawah AKANKOLIM. (GHA). It was an RSC loss in round 1 for Sanyang Sandy SAM of Gambia against his victor, Sadiki MAROY MAROY of DR Congo.
The third and final bout of the day for this category saw the former Swedish National Champion Alex BWAMBALE, now of Uganda, triumph over Angolan Luvumbo Kiala JUNIOR.
Men’s Super Heavy Battle
In the Super Heavy category, Agnes Keddy EVANS (SEY) didn’t get a look in against Dos Santos Morais DAVILSON (CPV) who emerged victorious with a 5:0 win and it was the same score in Ring A for Yegnong NJIEYO (CMR) over Solomon Geko KOZAALA (UGA).
To close the day, 23 year old Ghanaian boxer Anani KUTSUKE went through to the next round beating the two-time Commonwealth Games competitor, Haruna Swanga MHANDO – an athlete ten years his senior.
Two more sessions are scheduled today at the Dakar Arena at the same times of 2pm and 6pm UTC. Both genders will be in the rings as we’ll see bouts in the Women’s Fly, Women’s Light, Men’s Fly, Men’s Light and Men’s Middle categories.
Follow the event live
The event will be broadcast live on the Olympic Channel. In addition to live streaming with commentary in English and French, highlights and news, the Olympic Channel will present a live studio show prior to the quarter-final, semi-final and final matches of each event.
News, photos and results will be posted online on the Athlete365 Boxing Corner platform at boxing.athlete365.org, while fans can join the conversation online using the hashtag #Boxing.
Event schedule
The session schedules for each of the events can be found here.
