Mandeni kickboxers bring back gold from Joburg tournament

Three upcoming kickboxers from Mandeni came back with impressive results from the Pound For Pound K1 Kickboxing Tournament held in Johannesburg earlier this month.

Ntando Zondi, Tyrese Matthews and Rian Dunn all bagged gold medals under the leadership of their coach who is the former three-time world kickboxing champion, Tollie Enslin.

Zondi said it was the first time they had travelled out of the province to compete.

“We made it our mission as a team that we were going for gold. We did not travel for hours just to get silver, so it was gold or nothing,” said Zondi.

He said they would like to see kickboxing receive more recognition and get support like soccer and netball.

“I feel that the kickboxing community is being isolated from other sports in the country because very few of the kickboxing tournaments are sponsored by the government. There are so many great kickboxers out there but they lack the necessary support to boost their talent,” said Zondi.