🇫🇷 Countdown to 2024 Paris Olympic Games, July 27- August 10
KNEE INJURY KNOCKS OUT NIGERI’AS OMOLE DOLAPO
▪️ He has been replaced by Ethiopia’s Yadesa Leta
A left knee injury has knocked out Nigeria’s Omole Dolapo (pictured) from the Paris Olympics.
He has has now been replaced by Ethiopia’s Yadesa Leta whom Dolapo defeated in the finals of the Africa Olympic qualifiers last year in Dakar, Senegal.
Dolapo’s coach Adura Olalehin confirmed the African Games featherweight champion is officially out of the Paris Olympics.
“Due to a medical issue Dolapo is not going to Paris,” said Olalehin on phone from their training camp in Germany.
Contacted, Dolapo said he was very disappointed to be out of the Games.
“I’m depressed and hoping to rise again stronger because I’m bitterly down, the knee injury is so painful now I wish myself quick recovery,” said Dolapo from Lagos.
“The knee problem started when I was still young, it became worse in the African Games in Accra but I soldiered on.”
Dolapo made his international debut in the Africa Elite Championships in Yaounde, Cameroon, last year, settling for a bronze medal.
He started boxing when he was six years old at Alaba International in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State.
“I was just doing it for fun. Sometimes I won gold at local competitions sometimes I didn’t win anything. But I knew that one day, it will pay so I continued despite the challenges,” Dolapo told the Daily True newspaper in an interview in April this year.
“So, I kept grinding till when I became the state champion. From there, I moved up from being an amateur to professional boxer. In my professional boxing voyage, I have been involved in nine fights, recording nine wins by knockout. It was after this impressive record, I received the call to the national team.”
✍🏼 AFBC Communications