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Okwiri to prepare for Olympics with pro-boxing bouts
Boxer Rayton Okwiri during a past Inter-services bout. He is one of the three Kenyan boxers and a similar number of officials who left for Rio Olympic Games on Sunday. PHOTO | FILE |
What you need to know:
- Okwiri on Monday said that APB matches which will resume next month and will run for the next two months will offer him the best chance to prepare for the Olympics set for Brazil in August.
- Okwiri has been starved for action locally for sometime now.
- Pugilists competing in APB are contracted and are only allowed to represent their countries in international assignments.
Kenya’s welterweight boxer, Rayton Okwiri, will step up his preparations for 2016 Olympics with Aiba Pro-boxing (APB) championship.
Okwiri, who came second in last month’s Aiba boxing athlete of the month vote, on Monday said that APB matches which will resume next month and will run for the next two months will offer him the best chance to prepare for the Olympics set for Brazil in August.
He said: “ I usually train at Nairobi’s Kaloleni Social Hall in the mornings and move to City Stadium in the afternoon for power lifting as I wait for the championship to start. I use Pal Pal gymnasium at Pumwani Social Hall for sparring, but for the time being, my sparring partner Daniel Sisia, is not available.”
Like Okwiri, Sisia a former national heavyweight boxer, represented Prisons in the local boxing league. Okwiri has been starved for action locally for sometime now.
INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS
Kenya has three pugilists competing in APB. The other two are bantamweight Benson Gicharu (Police) and middleweight Nick Abaka (Kenya Defence Force).
Pugilists competing in APB are contracted and are only allowed to represent their countries in international assignments. For this reason, the trio were included in Kenya’s squad that took part in the African qualifiers for the Olympics last month in Yaoundé .
Okwiri was Kenya’s only boxer who qualified for the Olympics. Gicharu was Kenya’s sole male representative in the 2012 London Olympics.
However, Gicharu and Abaka can still make it to Rio when APB and World Series of Boxing pugilists fight it out later this month.
If Gicharu and Abaka fail to qualify in Sofia, they still have a last chance of getting an Olympic slot in the last AOB (AIBA Open Boxing) slated for Baku, Azerbaijan, from June 7 to 19.
