Grandmaster

Today, let’s talk boxing, and why not?

Way back in June 1957 Hogan Kid Bassey stamped Nigeria’s name on the world map of sports by winning the professional featherweight world boxing title by knocking out Cherif  Hamia of France in Paris.

Nigeria’s first Olympic medal, a bronze, came through boxing at the Tokyo Games in 1964, thanks to the heroic performance of Lagos boy, Nojeem Maiyegun.

And in Los Angeles 1984, Nigeria’s flag was raised at the boxing arena where Peter Konyewanchie squared up with American Meldrick Taylor in the final of the featherweight contest, lost narrowly by the Nigerian.

Those of us present at the venue knew it was a robbery to satisfy the hosts, USA. Nigeria’s best shot at the Olympic boxing came in Barcelona 1992 when we had two boxers in the final- David Izonrintei (heavyweight) and Richard Igbinegbu (super heavyweight).

Tough luck, their opponents were Cubans and Cuba are the world’s undisputed leaders/champions in amateur boxing.

At the last Olympic Games, Beijing 2008, Bruna Julie of Mauritius was the only African to collect a medal in boxing – a bronze – and at the current qualifying series going on in Morocco, Bruno Julie has been eliminated. So he is not going to the London Games which begin on July 27.

What I am driving at is that out of the 44 medals available at Olympic boxing, the entire African continent won only one bronze, while eleven gold medals, eleven silver medals and the remaining 21 bronze medals were won by Italy, China, Ireland, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Russia, France, Mongolia, Great Britain, Dominican Republic, Thailand and Ukraine.

Boxing was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1904 when St. Louis, USA hosted and there was a demonstration of women’s boxing as well as the men’s event.

Boxers must have reached a minimum age of 17 and the upper age of 34. The winning and losing semi-finalists are awarded bronze medals since 1952, the year Nigeria made their debut at Helsinki.

Olympic boxing is pure science and has been elevated to the level as the noble art of self defence. You collect points by hitting your opponent with the knuckle and avoid being hit. Whoever collects more points is declared the winner, and via a clean knockout or technical knock out.

Boxing has always generated controversies at the Olympic Games, especially during the days of the Cold War – NATO vs Warsaw. The international Amateur Boxing Association – IABA – supplied the officiating officials who were nationals of NATO led by the USA and Warsaw, led by the then Soviet Union. Hence close bouts were decided in favour of the bloc that had a majority among the five judges.

The third world, especially Africans were the biggest victims, because only a few were allowed to officiate.

It took nearly five decades before an African boxer, Clement Quartey of Ghana reached the final of the Rome 1960 Olympic Games in the light welterweight class.

Yet the judges decided that he lost the final to Bohumil Nemecek of Czechoslovakia, then a powerful surrogate of the Soviet Union. In Mexico 1968 Joseph Bessala of Cameroun became the second African finalist and yet “lost” to Manfred Wolke of East Germany. Also in 1968 Eridadi Mukwanga of Uganda fought his way to the final of bamtamweight category but was adjudged to have lost to Valery Sokolov of the super power Soviet Union.

However succour came to the rescue of those victimized by the super powers when computer scoring system was introduced to Olympic boxing, and Robert Wangila of Kenya won a gold Medal in 1988.

Winning Olympic medal in boxing opens the world of opportunities to many who have gone on to become world champions.

Who will ever forget Floyd Patterson, the American middleweight gold medalist in 1952 and later world heavyweight champ; Muhammad Ali 1960 light heavyweight Olympic gold medalist and later world heavyweight  champion; Joe Frazier 1964 Olympic heavyweight gold medalist; George Foreman 1968 Olympic gold medalist not to forget Lennox Lewis, Leon Spinks and in the lower ranks, Oscar de 1a Hoya of USA and Amir Khan of Great Britain. The list is endless.

No write-up on Olympic boxing will be complete without a generous mention of the phenomenal achievements of Cuba, especially the duo of Teofilo Stevenson and Felix Savon.

Between the two they won six Olympic gold medals, four more than Nigeria’s since 1952.

It was at Munich Olympic Games in 1972 that the world marveled at the scintillating performance of Teofilo Stevenson who smashed through six opponents without as much as receiving a single blow in the heavy weight class.

Four years later in Montreal 1976, he was even more magisterial in dealing with his opponents and in Moscow 1980 Stevenson made it a hat-trick.

Before then no one had ever successfully defended an Olympic heavyweight title, but he did it twice.

When the world thought it had seen the ultimate, another Cuban heavyweight boxer, Felix Savon burst unto the scene. He was even more devastating than Stevenson.

I had the good fortune of watching the two Cubans in action, especially Savon in Barcelona 1992 heavyweight final when our own David Izonrintei gave a game performance against the master.

What is it between Cuba and amateur boxing?

Cuba got to their first Olympic boxing finals in 1968 and losing to opponents from Poland and Soviet Union sent them to boxing laboratory. Then from 1972 Cuba have become a “terror” to the rest of the world.

From 1972 till date, Cuba have won more than 20 gold medals in Olympic boxing.

At Barcelona 92 they had nine boxers in the final, seven won, at Athens 2004 they had seven boxers in the final, five won, but at the last Olympic Games Beijing 2008, Cuba had four boxers in the final and all lost.

During the days of the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, boxing was the national sports of Cuba and they could raise as many as four first eleven teams to represent the country, and come back victorious but with the weakening of socialism in Cuba, some of  their talented boxers are defecting to the USA.

At the height of Muhammad Ali’s professional boxing career, Fidel Castro donated $5 million as prize money if Ali defeated his man, Teofilo Stevenson, who at that time had not yet won his third Olympic gold medal.

Ali was tempted to take the challenge but wise counsel prevented him, because the Cuban boxer was hotter than fire. Teofilo Stevenson was capable of knocking out any heavyweight boxer.

Followers of Olympic boxing must have heard about Laszlo Papp of Hungary. A ruthlessly efficient southpaw, Papp was the first boxer to have ever won three gold medals – middleweight in 1948, and the light middleweight in 1952 and 1956.

What gave Cuba and other socialist countries an edge in amateur boxing is that they do not allow their citizens to turn pro. As amateur boxers, the average Cuban has fought more than 300 fights with different opponents and by the time they get to the Olympic Games, they are more than ready.

In the past Nigeria sent our boxers to Cuba for short term training which has proven to be ineffective.

In fact, our boxers were turned into training materials for the fourth rated Cuban boxers.

Nigeria had produced good boxers in the past and can still produce more. But you need to ask where are the amateur boxing clubs? Where are the trained coaches?

How many standard boxing rings are in each local government? How many gloves are available for the amateur boxers? What is their feeding and medication like? Do we have skipping ropes, punching bags and speed balls?

The last time we had a few of those materials listed above was during the days of Group Captain Brai Ayonote and since he passed on, Barcelona 92 remained our best Olympic boxing outing ever. But we need gold.

Will there be from London 2012?

The 11 weight categories

The eleven weight categories in Olympic boxing are:

Light flyweight (48kg); flyweight (51kg)

Bamtamweight (54kg); Featherweight (57kg)

Lightweight (60kg); light welterweight (64kg)

Welterweight (69kg); middleweight (75kg)

Light heavyweight (81kg) heavyweight (91kg)

Super heavyweight (+91kg).

Which one do you belong?