Kenya women’s star boxer Elizabeth Andiego has ruled out turning professional in the near future.
She will, instead, use the Covid-19 pandemic break to intensify plans for her intended second career Olympics ticket.
The country’s first ever woman Olympian in London revealed that she had not lost hope for a ticket to Tokyo next year after her campaign came a cropper in the Dakar, Senegal continental qualifiers, where she traveled as a deputy captain.
All boxers who didn’t qualify at continental level have a chance to make the team to Tokyo 2021 during the World qualification tournament earlier scheduled for Paris but postponed indefinitely due to Covid-19.
In an interview, Andiego said: “I have no immediate plans to transition to paid ranks unless I get better offers. I have also taken time to ponder over my future in professional boxing but looking at how some boxers are languishing in poverty, I have had to rethink my position.”
At the moment, Andiego said she is training on her own as she seeks to make the cut for the Tokyo games.
Andiego qualification to London 2012 was controversial having lost to Lien Lotte of Norway in Beijing qualifiers. AIBA were forced to overturned the decision to allow Andiego to compete at the London Olympics, where she teamed up with compatriot Benson Gicharu.
In London 2012, she competed in the women’s middleweight division, losing in the first round. She also represented Kenya at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow Scotland but again lost in the first round. “Let’s see how this Olympics campaign will go. For now, focus is on Tokyo.”
Andiego originally participated in taekwondo, but switched to boxing in 2007. Her dream for Rio Olympics were shattered following a near-fatal accident in Nairobi in 2015.
Andiego was riding home on a motorbike when she was hit by a speeding taxi that left her with a fractured leg and a cracked skull along Nairobi’s Kangundo Road. Andiego was among the five-member Kenyan squad that participated in the Olympic Qualifiers in Dakar.
So far, only two Kenyan boxers have made the cut to the Tokyo event. They are Captain Nick Okoth “Commander’ and Christine Ongare who will became the second Kenyan woman boxer to feature at the Olympic Games.