18 Feb 2016

 Seven national team boxers will on Sunday jet off to North Africa to join the Moroccan Atlas Lions and other European boxing powerhouses in their final bid to sharpen up ahead of this year’s summer Olympics penciled for Rio de Janeiro. 

Speaking in an interview before the team's training camp ,Botswana Boxing Association (BoBA) publicity secretary, Kenny Maragana said after an impressive Zone IV tournament in the coastal city of Maputo recently, they were optimistic that the national team was shaping up quite well for the highly contested Olympic Qualifiers billed for next month in Yaoundé, Cameroon. 

Botswana will pin hopes on light fly weight champion Mohamed Otukile who returned home with silver from Mozambique while on song 60kg boxer Kabelo Bagwasi is set to impress after clinching the best bout at Zone IV.  

His brother Kagiso will carry the nation’s hopes in the 64kg division.  Other boxers who are part of the team are light heavy weight champion Zibani Chikanda and 69kg pugilist Lentswe Zwinila. 

Botswana has in the past sent boxers to the Olympics amongst them Thato Batshegi, Lechedzani Master Luza, Khumiso Ikgopoleng and lately Oteng Oteng who was knocked off the preliminaries at the 2012 London Olympics. 

Meanwhile Prisons Boxing club will tomorrow (Saturday) host the second instalment of the BoBA interclub tournaments slated for this year at the BDF Village camp.  The first tournament was successfully hosted by DTCB boxing club. 

Some of the mouthwatering bouts lined up for the day include a rematch between bitter rivals Mmusi Tswiige and SSKB’s Keoagile Rantutu. Thabang Motsewabeng will lie in wait for Selebi Phikwe’s Oteng Phatshwe while in the ladies division Keneilwe Rakhudu will face a mammoth task against Pearl Morake. Ends