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Sports News of Friday, 28 May 2021

Source: punchng.com

Nigerian boxers absence at Olympics shameful - Oboh

Peter Oboh Peter Oboh

Former WBA Inter-Continental light heavyweight champion, Peter Oboh, has expressed disappointment over the absence of Nigerian boxers at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Oboh noted that if the boxers had attended the earlier qualifiers, instead of waiting for the world qualifiers, which was cancelled because of COVID-19, the situation would have been different.

“I think I will blame boxing officials for this failure. Boxing is a sport that has the potential of winning multiple medals, unlike football which guarantees only one medal. The first medal we won at the Olympics was by Nojeem Mayegun, a boxer, in 1964 in Tokyo and Peter Konyegwachi, another boxer, won silver in 1984.

“I’m disappointed with this development. It has never happened in the history of Nigerian boxing. The lockdown surely contributed to this but if the system is working, the boxers should have attended other qualifiers before the outbreak of COVID-19. This shows that procrastination does no one any good.”

Oboh, a former British and Commonwealth champion, urged officials to guard against such mistakes in the future.

“I think they should make sure that such does not happen again. It is a shame that Nigerian boxers will not be at the Olympics not because they couldn’t qualify but because they missed the qualifiers, while the one they planned to attend was cancelled due to COVID-19. Japan opens mass vaccination centres ahead of Olympics

“I think lack of organisation brought us to this level and we should work hard to prevent this in future. I am really sad that boxing has been neglected.”

Oboh, now a pastor, urged administrators to unite for the progress of boxing in the country.