Botswana dethrone South Africa in boxing tournament
Although several countries withdrew from last week's Zone 4 boxing championships, following xenophobic violence in South Africa, there was still plenty of action and excellent boxing performances at the Transnet Engineering Boxing Gymnasium in Pretoria.
Boxers from six different Southern Africa countries gathered last week at the Transnet Engineering Boxing Gymnasium Sports Hall in Koedoespoort to compete in the 2015 African Boxing Confederation (AFBC) Zone 4 boxing championships.
The first heats for the championship had already started last Wednesday from where the action built up to the final rounds on Saturday.
Teams from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique and Mauritius took part.
Unfortunately many countries that are part of Zone 4 (better known as the Southern African Development Community or SADEC countries) withdrew from the tournament because of the violence which was committed in South Africa against aliens in the past weeks. This meant the tournament had to continue without strong competitive countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Lesotho.
South Africa’s team consisted of 10 men and five women. This team, who had won the tournament in 2013 and 2014, included several newcomers since some boxers have retired and others started boxing professionally after last year’s Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
The result was the South African team being dethroned by Botswana at the recent championships. The South Africans finally made it to second place in the tournament with four gold, five silver and two bronze medals.
Two boxers from Pretoria were among the stars in the South African team. Paul Schafer, who was a silver medalist at the Commonwealth Games last year, was the best boxer in the super heavyweight division for men. Phatiswa Thingana, another Commonwealth Games silver medalist, also won her division at the tournament.
According to South African coach Johan Prinsloo they were working hard with the new team in preparation for next year’s Olympic Games.
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