Namibian who beat up friends becomes unlikely Rio hero

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian boxing fans have an unlikely new Olympic hero – an all-action Namibian by the name of Mathias Tulyoongeleni Hamunyela.

The 23-year-old light flyweight bustled his way to a unanimous points decision over Rufat Huseynov of Azerbaijan on Saturday, the first day of the boxing in Rio, to the raucous delight of the mostly Brazilian crowd.

Hamunyela milked the ovation from the 9,000-seat arena and blew kisses to the crowd, who chanted “Namibia! Namibia!” after endearing himself to the home fans with a mixture of guts and aggression.

It wasn’t pretty much, but he did enough to firmly win over the crowd, who gave him a standing ovation, and the judges.

“I don’t want to disappoint my fans and my coaches,” he told AFP after.

“The crowd helped me so much and made me work hard because I didn’t want to disappoint them because they were screaming for me.”

“There was no way I was going to let them down,” added the Namibian, who has only been a boxer for four years.

Asked how he got into boxing, he said: “When I was a child at school I liked fighting, I used to beat up my friends. A lot of my friends told me, ‘You are good at fighting and you are aggressive so you better be a boxer.’” – Nampa-AFP

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