Forty-eight pugilists from six clubs have confirmed their participation in the two-day national boxing championship slated to start today at Petit Stade, Remera.

The two-day event which runs from today gets underway on Friday has attracted pugilists’ clubs of Kigali city only.
The clubs which include Inkuba, Rafiki, No Limit (Pan Africa), Remera, Kigali and Kimisagara clubs will have their pugilists taking part Light weights (48kg) to middle weights (75kg) categories.

This year’s national championships is expected to last two days with the first bout starting today at 3pm.

The Rwanda Amateur Boxing Association Technical Director, Gashugi Kananura told Times Sport yesterday that the national championship has been confirmed to start despite lack of interest from sponsors to inject money in the two-day event, a feat which would help in facilitating a thorough national event.

"The event was due to start on Wednesday but the unavailability to secure funds for the event forced the federation to postpone it until tomorrow (today).

I can’t confirm whether the funds have been got at the moment but technically the event kicks off tomorrow (today) afternoon,”

"We had planned to have over 75 boxers meaning that the event would last for four days but the limited number has forced us to trim down to two days,” Gashugi said.

Gashugi further added that the championship will help the federation’s technical team to select over 10 strong pugilists who will undergo intensive training before taking part in the continental qualifiers for 2008 Olympic Games due to be held in Beijing Games.

The African qualifiers for the 2008 Olympic Games will be held on January 21 and March 21 and will be staged in Algeria and Namibia respectively.

The championship had initially been scheduled to run from November 8-12 but it was postponed due to an international gospel crusade by Uganda’s renowned evangelist Pastor Robert Kayanja.

Defending champions, Remera boxing club won the 2005 edition. The local boxing body never held a national championship last year.

Ends