AfricaPress-Tanzania: BOXING Federation of Tanzania (BFT) Secretary General, Lukelo Willilo, has confirmed the commitment for national boxing team to participate in Olympic qualification Games in Paris, France.
Apart from the Olympic qualification Games that they will participate, they have also made plans to participate in the International Boxing Association (AIBA) 2021 World Championship in Belgrade, Serbia and Y outh 2021 Olympics in Dakar, Senegal.
Willilo told the “Daily News” in Dar es Salaam that BFT Executive Committee will soon meet to draft the way forward towards resuming the national boxing team’s training.
President John Magufuli picked June 1st this year as the official date to resume all sport activities in the country, while insisting that engaging in sports is a reliable preventive method to fight against diseases including the coronavirus.
Sports activities and events of huge public nature were suspended on March 17th this year for fear of the Coronavirus outbreak.
“Our plans to participate in the Paris qualifiers are still intact; we are just waiting for the green light to continue with our preparations. “We will also make efforts to send our teams for the AIBA 2021 World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia as well as at the Y outh 2021 Olympics in Dakar, Senegal,” he said.
To make sure that they reach their target, Willilo said that BFT will hold an Executive Committee meeting soon, which will among others, discuss plans for national team to resume training ahead of the coming competitions.
“We expect to have an executive committee meeting soon, where we will discuss about the preparations for the national team to compete in the mentioned events. We will also deliberate on other matters which include promotion of the sport in the country,” he said.
Earlier before the Coronavirus outbreak, the national team participated in Olympic Q ualification Games at Dakar, Senegal but they were not lucky and did not get a single ticket to Tokyo Olympic Games.
In Dakar, Tanzania was represented by Alex Isendi who was the squad captain, Boniface Mlingwa, Huruna Mhando and Y usufu Changarawe.
They were under the tutelage of Head Coach David Yombayomba. Hence, the competition in Paris will be a second chance for Tanzanian boxers to battle for the qualification marks.
Meanwhile, the national team boxers are training individually to maintain their physical fitness before they return for group training.
“The boxers are taking their individual drills seriously and we have been monitoring their progress frequently,” he added.
