Boxer Ali and rower Lidaywa first in action

What you need to know:

  • The 28-year-old fighter made it to Beijing despite being knocked out of his final bout in Namibia
  • Ali will stop at nothing in his dream of following in the footsteps of Robert Wangila.

Light heavyweight boxer Aziz Ali and rower Mathew Lidaywa will have no time to nurse the hangovers from last night’s splendid opening ceremony for the Games of the 29th Olympiad when their respective competitions get underway here on Saturday.

In fact, Ali opted to stay indoors at the Olympic Village last night as his team mates joined a 100,000-strong crowd that included American president George Bush.

Others were Kenya’s vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka and about 100 world leaders and representatives of government at the National Olympic Stadium ceremonies that started at exactly eight seconds past eight minutes past eight o’clock.

Bidding process

To the Chinese, eight is a lucky number that brings with it great tidings, hence the selection of the time, date and month for the opening ceremony, and, with quite some luck – after a fierce bidding process - the year 2008.

To them, last night’s date 08-08-08 was simply magical, hence the decision to take it a little further and kick off the sports party at 08:08.08 pm, to bring luck to the competition.

Luck, meanwhile, has followed Ali through to this stage, the biggest in global amateur boxing.

The 28-year-old fighter made it to Beijing despite being knocked out of his final bout of the Second Africa Olympic Qualifiers in Windhoek, Namibia, by Ghana’s Bastie Samir.

The Kenya Prisons national champion hopes more luck will come his way to supplement the hard training he has been subjected to by his coaches, who include former Kenyan great Patrick “Mont” Waweru, when he takes to the ring this afternoon against Turkey’s 22-year-old Muzaffer Bahram at the Workers’ Gymnasium in Beijing.

At six feet, two inches Turkish fighter might have a longer reach than Aziz, who stands at 5’8” but these are mere statistics as if his resolve and morale at the Olympic Village are anything to go by, then Ali will stop at nothing in his dream of following in the footsteps of Robert Wangila.

He is the great welterweight fighter who clinched Africa’s first gold medal with victory over France’s Laurent Boudouani at the 1988 Games in Seoul.

Lidaywa has been training along at the competition venue, about an hour’s drive from the Olympic Village and , along with the taekwondo tea, is the dark horse in the Kenyan contingent here.