BAK sets date for Commonwealth Games trials

The selection of boxers to represent Kenya in next year’s Commonwealth Games set for Gold Coast, Australia, from April 4-15, will be done in December.

Boxing Association of Kenya (BAK) president, John Kameta, on Tuesday said that the performance of boxers in the national league will determine the top four pugilists per weight category, who will fight it out in the trials. The two finalists will go for residential training camp in January.

“We award points to boxers in the league. A winner gets four points, losing finalists three and the two losing semi-finalists get a pointy each,” said Kameta.

Kameta also said that in Gold Coast, Kenya will be represented by a full squad of 10 male boxers from light flyweight to super heavyweight.

Commenting on the chances of Kenya Police bantamweight pugilist Benson Gicharu to represent the country in his third successive Commonwealth Games after his poor show in the league at Nakuru’s Madison Square Garden over the weekend, Kameta said: “We cannot write off Gicharu, but he must train hard to regain his form.”

LOST TO MEJA

Gicharu lost to Isaac Meja of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) in the quarter-finals.

Interestingly, it is Gicharu who presented Meja with a pair of boxing boots in 2010 for being a “promising boxer” in a Nairobi Youth Championship at the St Teresa’s Church Hall, Eastleigh.

According to Musa Benjamin, the Nairobi County Boxing Association secretary and the Undugu Boxing Club coach, KDF recruited Meja from Undugu.

Gicharu has represented the country in two successive Commonwealth Games in Delhi 2010 where he clinched silver and 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland where he settled for bronze. He also competed in two Olympic Games. London 2012 and last year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Gicharu was also one of the three Kenyan boxers who took part in the discontinued International Boxing Association (Aiba) pro-boxing. The other two were welterweight Rayton Okwiri (Prisons) and Nick Abaka (KDF).