Uutoni KO’d, as Namibia stutters

LIGHT flyweight category top favourite and Namibian team captain Japhet Uutoni was eliminated from the the African Olympic qualifiers in Casablanca on Sunday after being knocked out by Egypt’s Ramy Helmy El-Awadi.

The veteran Namibian – a gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne – was floored six seconds before the end of the first round and failed to beat the count. Uutoni was arguably Namibia’s best bet for an Olympic spot, however his shocking exit at the hands of the 22-year-old Arab Games bronze medallist denied him a second successive his second Summer Olympic appearance in London.’He was just caught flat. If you put the wrong step forward you can get knocked out very quickly and that’s what happened,’ said Joe Kaperu, Secretary General of the Namibian Boxing Federation.’We expected Uutoni to go through, so it is a setback, but we can still spring a few surprises,’ he added. Another Egyptian, Kamel Rahmani was the undoing of Namibia’s other hopeful, super heavyweight and vice captain Tobias Munihango, who also suffered a first round exit after he lost 18-15 on points. According to Kaperu, Munihango was visibly upset, claiming he had been robbed but Kaperu dismissed this claim.’Most of the judges are international judges from outside of Africa so I’m a bit sceptical about Munihango’s claims,’ he said.To compound matters, flyweight Simon Johannes failed to arrive in time for his first round bout with the result that he lost on a walkover to Ghana’s Duke Micah in the 52kg flyweight category.Kaperu said the team manager Ali Nuumbembe had told him that the starting time on the programme did not correlate with the actual starting time and they arrived late for the fight.’They arrived late for the fight so Micah won by a walkover. Nuumbembe told me the time on the programme was not the correct time, but the management took the blame. I think they made a technical mistake. They left Johannes at his hotel room to rest, but they could have picked it up as the bouts were progressing that his fight was coming up,’ he said. This leaves Mujandjae Kasuto, Jonas Matheus and Jeremia Nakathila to carry Namibia’s challenge after they managed to win their first bouts.On Sunday evening, Nakathila won his first round bout in the 60kg lightweight category after beating Ali Sidibe of the Ivory Coast 16-10 on points.On Monday afternoon, Matheus comfortably beat Mukuni Mumbela of Zambia 15-5 on points, while Kasuto also recorded a comfortable victory after beating Chanel Tonda of Gabon 12-7 on points.All three boxers have now progressed to the quarterfinals after receiving first round byes, and just need one more victory to qualify for the London Olympic Games. – namibiasport.com.na