JONAS Junias Jonas qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games after an impressive semifinal victory against Abdelhaq Nadir of Morocco at the African Qualifying tournament in Dakar, Senegal on Wednesday.
Jonas won the fight by split decision, with three of the judges scoring in his favour and two against, but he dominated from the start and was a worthy winner.
Jonas took the fight to Nadir from the start, landing some quick combinations, and sharp jabs, while Nadir defended mostly and tried to catch Jonas on the counter-attack.
By the second round Jonas started attacking the Moroccan’s body more and landed a sharp right uppercut to win the round.
Jonas maintained his high tempo in the third and final round to shade the round and qualify for his second Olympic Games after Rio 2016.
Jonas has now qualified for the lightweight final where he will meet Richarno Colin of Mauritius who beat Fiston Mulumba of the DR Congo yesterday, but with both finalists qualifying for the Olympic Games he can now start preparing for Tokyo.
The victory was extra sweet for Jonas after he had suffered a controversial semifinal defeat to Nadir, on a split decision in front of a home crowd, at the All Africa Games in Morocco last year.
On that occasion, Nadir went on to win the gold medal after another split decision win against Richarno Colin, while Jonas had to settle for the bronze medal.
Going into yesterday’s fight Nadir was the top ranked boxer in the lightweight category while Jonas was only ranked fourth, but he has now taken revenge and readjusted the rankings with yesterday’s emphatic victory.
The president of the Namibia National Olympic Committee, Abner Xoagub congratulated Jonas on a fine win, saying, he deserved it.
“That was a great performance by Jonas and he deserved to win. It’s what we said from the beginning, he just had to pressurise Nadir from the start and not allow him to sway the judges.
“Im very happy that Jonas has qualified because we have invested a lot in him and this was also his dream. He was on an Olympic scholarship while he also attended a training camp in the United States in January this year,” he said.
“Now he will have to step up his training, as well as his fitness and focus. We will also have to get him good sparring partners to help him prepare for Tokyo,” he said.
Namibia’s other two hopefuls, Tryagain Ndevelo and Nestor Thomas, however lost, to end their chances of qualification for Tokyo.
In the 52kg flyweight category, Nestor Thomas got off to a good start with a 5-0 victory against Miguel Kembo of Angola, but his tournament came to an end in the quarterfinals when he lost 5-0 to Mohamed Flissi of Algeria.
In the 57kg featherweight category, Tryagain Ndevelo won his preliminary round fight with a first round stoppage of Franck Mombey of Gambia, but he bowed out with a split decision defeat to Isaac Masembe of Uganda in the quarterfinals.
