By Victor Kanayo
Barely two days after the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, up to five African boxer will test battle in Paris, France.
Top among them is an African Games champion and Nigeria’s Adam Olaore who will engage Cuba’s La Cruz in the quarter-final much later in the day, depending on the round of 32 outcome.
La Cruz is favoured to defeat Azerbaijan’s Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Loren Berto who won gold in the 2021 Worlds and silver last year in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Olaore trained at his base in Newcastle before linking up with his compatriots in Germany for pre-Games preparations.
Others In The Mix
The other four African boxers fighting on Sunday in the round of 32 include Zambia’s flyweight Margret Tembo, Morocco’s Yasmine Mouttaki, Mozambican pair of Alcinda Dos Santos and Tiago Muxanga.
Tembo is lined up against polished Finnish southpaw Pihla Kauvo-Oja who beat Nigeria’s Zainab Adeshina in the quota bout to book a ticket to the Paris Olympics during the final world qualifiers in Thailand.
It’s obvious Adeshina will be rooting for Tembo and she’s likely to jump up in joy in case Tembo beats her Finland opponent.
Flyweight Mouttaki meets Aira Villegas of the Phillipines with victory setting her up for the sixth fight against arch-rival Roumaysa Boualam of Algeria who received a bye to the round of 16.
Two-time African champion Alcinda Dos Santos has a date with Slovakia’s Jessica Triebelova at welterweight while Alcinda’s compatriot, Tiago Muxanga, squares it out with Germany’s Magomed Elim Sultanovic in the light-middleweight class.
Suspension Hammer
Earlier on, Nigerian lightweight boxer, Cynthia Ogunsemilore, was provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned substance ahead of her opening fight.
The International Testing Agency in a statement said the 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and African Games champion tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list, in an out-of-competition doping control collected on Thursday.
“The athlete has been informed of the case and has been provisionally suspended until the resolution of the matter in line with the World Anti-Doping Code and the International Olympic Committee Anti-Doping Rules,” the ITA said on their website.
The suspension means Ogunsemilore is barred from competing, training, coaching, or participating in any activity during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
She had been scheduled to face Taiwan’s Wu Shih Yi in a round of 16 bout on Tuesday.
The development has further reduced Nigeria’s boxing team, leaving only Adam Olaore as the sole medal hopeful for the nation in the ring.
Dolapo Omole, the third Nigerian who qualified for the Olympics in boxing, also had to withdraw days before the Games due to injury.
