BY BONNIE MUGABERwanda has ruled out any chances of participating in the first boxing qualifiers for next year’s Beijing Olympics during the World Amateur Boxing Championships in October scheduled to be held in Chicago, USA. The Rwanda Amateur Boxing Association (Raba) Technical Director, Gashugi Kananura says that the association can not meet the requirements to take part in the World Championships. “We can’t raise the funds to compete in the World championships though it would have been a great experience for our boxers,” Gashugi said before adding that, “though the event is a qualification ground for next year’s Olympics, Raba has switched its focus to Africa’s qualification round.” According to circular from the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), a new qualification format for the Beijing event has been designed. Gashugi said that the ‘All Africa Games’ event will no longer be used to pick qualifiers for the future Olympics. Boxers from all the five continents will have to go through a rigorous selection. Africa will have two more qualification rounds in December and next March at venues yet to be decided, in which 38 boxers will attain the grade. Five countries; Uganda, Mauritius, Egypt, Uganda and Algeria are bidding to host the two qualifiers and Africa Amateur Boxing Confederation (AABC) is set to meet next month to decide on the hosts. After all the qualifications, Africa will parade 60 boxers in the Beijing Games which will bring together 385 pugilists drawn from the five continents.
