THE Zone IV Boxing Championships that were billed to take place in Namibia will now take place in Botswana from May 9 to 14 and the Namibian team will leave on Sunday to compete at the tournament.
The Namibian Boxing Federation (NBF) secretary general, Joe Kaperu, earlier said that they had been struggling to get sponsorship to host the tournament and had earlier indicated that Botswana was ready to host if they did not manage to come up with the money.One of the coaches of the Namibian team, Immanuel Moses (younger brother of ‘Hitman’ Moses), said the preparations were going well.’We have been training the team for about a week now and everything is going well except for the fact that we should have been in camp but we are doing all we can do,’ Moses said.The team was supposed to have been in camp from the beginning of April after they were selected at the Elite Boxing Tournament that was held in Walvis Bay.’There was no money for us to have a proper camp so the boxers are coming in from their houses to train with us here,’ Moses added.’We as the coaches made the decision to bring the boxers together otherwise they would have just gone to Botswana without having had proper training. We could not wait for the federation to start the training or else it would have been too late,’ he continued.Despite the poor preparations ahead of the tournament, Moses said he was confident that the boxers would do well at the tournament.’We have experienced boxers like Kasuto (Mujandjae), Tobias (Munihango) and Nashivela (Elias) and we believe in them and we will bring back some medals,’ he said.’When we go there this time it will be tough because they changed from Zone VI to Zone IV which means there will be more countries participating, therefore this means more bouts for the boxers,’ he added.’Last time we came back with six gold medals, but this year because of the poor preparation we have had, we might get less, but I am still confident we will win the overall tournament.’The team leaves for Botswana on 7 May and will return on the 15th.The boxers that are in the team are: Jafet Uutoni (49 kg), Andreas Amupolo (52 kg), Johannes ‘Baluka’ Simon (56 kg), Titus Iyambo (60 kg), Machel Kavari (64 kg), Mujandjae Kasuto (69 kg), Elias Nashivela (75 kg), Johannes Shilimedima (81 kg) and Tobias Munihango (90+ kg). Immanuel Moses, Siegfried Kaperu and Mike Salafi are coaching staff.- namibiasport.com.na
