•Musa, who is being deputised by Dave Munuhe and John Waweru, is nevertheless saddened by the lack of medals at the Olympics.
•The Kenyan bench has kept a clean podium finish record in all the four national assignments since they took charge of Hit Squad in 2019, clinching one gold, 7 silver and 15 bronze medals.
Image: FILE
The last time Kenya won medals at the Olympic Games was in Seoul in 1988 when Robert Napunyi Wangila and Chris Sande bagged gold and silver respectively.
At the time, Wangila had entered his name into the annals of continental history as the first African boxer to lay his hands on a gold medal after knocking out Frenchman Laurent Boudouni in the third round.
From then on, medals at the Summer Games proved elusive as Kenyan boxers continued to live in the shadows of their predecessors.
Veteran coach Benjamin Musa believes a change in the mindset for his four Kenyan Olympic team boxers will definitely make the difference and culminate into medals. Musa is happy with the input of the backroom staff in Tokyo and in Kenya.
Image: ERICK BARASA
He says their good effort has helped change the whole perception for Team Kenya boxers. "This time round, we started preparations really early. Coach Kimani has really come through on strength and conditioning. It has helped our boys remain nimble and focused unlike in the past when we only subjected boxers to intense jogging and physical sessions," coach Musa narrated.
Musa, who is being deputised by Dave Munuhe and John Waweru, is nevertheless saddened by the lack of medals at the Olympics. The Kenyan bench has kept a clean podium finish record in all the four national assignments since they took charge of Hit Squad in 2019, clinching one gold, 7 silver and 15 bronze medals.
At the 2019 All Africa Games in Rabat, Morocco, Kenya took one silver courtesy of Shaffi Bakari and four bronze medals. The 2020 Africa Olympic Qualifiers in Dakar, Senegal, saw Kenya win a silver and three bronze medals.The 2021 Africa Zone 3 Championships in Kinshasa DRC saw the Hit Squad clinch gold, five silver and six bronze medals.
Two bronze medals were harvested at the 2021 Konstantin Memorial in Khabarovsk, Russia. The million-dollar question now as Musa prepares for the big stage is: Will he break Kenya's Olympic-medal drought that has now lasted 32 years and 10 months since the legendary Robert Wangila won Gold at the Seoul 1988 Games?
Image: / FILE
“This time, I believe we all do not just want to participate but to also win medals,” said Musa.
Without naming names, Musa believes three of his boxers are medal prospects while one looks promising for the future.
“It’s no longer just about participating and returning home empty handed with the 'Olympian' tag, we have to punch above our weights," he noted.
"An Olympic journey comes to fruition when medals are forthcoming. That’s the shift in mentality that has helped in pushing our spirited campaign to desirable levels."
With four boxers ready for the Tokyo Olympics, Musa sounded quite confident of Kenya’s chances in the Japanese capital. Kenyan boxers didn't train in Kurume city where we had set up a pre-Olympic camp for rugby and track athletes among others.
The Kenya boxing team have been at AV Fitness Gym in Lavington since 2020, prior to moving to the Kasarani bubble camp where they wound up local training last week before departing forTokyo.
Musa nevertheless prefers to be cautious, saying: "It's really hard to make predictions given the tough opposition and tough pandemic situation, which has seen participants in high risk sports like boxing cool their heels."
Image: ERICK BARASA
The Kenya team has Nick Okoth and Christine Ongare who qualified during the continental qualifiers with Elly Ajowi and Elizabeth Akinyi making it by virtue of their ranking in Africa when final World Olympic repechage in Paris was cancelled due to Covid-19.
Of the four Kenyans, it's only Okoth who has previously been to the Olympics Games.
Okoth aka Commander is a younger sibling of Kuala Lumpur 98' Commonwealth Games silver medalist Absalom 'Diblo' Okinyi. He was among the five boxers who qualified for the Beijing Olympics when Kenya qualified 5 boxers. Since 1964, Kenyan boxers have missed out on three Olympics in Montreal 76, Mexico 80 and Athens 2004.
Kenya was among the 24 countries, mostly African, which boycotted the Montreal Games when the International Olympics Committee refused to ban New Zealand, after the country's national rugby union team toured South Africa earlier in 1976 despite United Nations' call for a sporting embargo.
Kenya was also among the countries that boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games to protest against the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In total, 65 nations refused to participate in the games, whereas 80 countries sent athletes to compete.
Image: ERICK AKINYI
In 2004 in Athens, David Munyasia was destined to be a lone-ranger but became the first boxer to be excluded from the Games after testing positive for cathine, a substance associated with khat.
Boxing in Tokyo 2020 Olympics
The boxing tournaments at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will take place from July 24 to August 8 at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan.
Thirteen events will be staged, the same number as London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. However, for the first time since the London Games, the programme has been updated, with the number of men's events reduced by two and the number of women's events increased by the same number.
On May 22, 2019, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the International Boxing Association (AIBA) had been stripped of the right to organise the tournament, owing to funding, governance, ethics, refereeing and judging".
This means the discipline will be organised by an ad-hoc task force led by Morinari Watanabe, president of the International Gymnastics Federation.