🇿🇦 Mandela African Boxing Cup Tournament in Durban, South Africa, April 15-21
MANDELA CUP: TOP BOXERS UNHAPPY WITH OFFICIATING ON THE FINAL DAY
▫️ Eyebrows have been raised on victories of Brigitte Mbabi, Elizabeth Andiego and Pita Kabeji
Two top boxers have expressed their displeasure on how their bouts were handled during the finals of the Mandela African Boxing Cup tournament in Durban on Sunday, April 21.
Africa welterweight champion Ivanusa Moreira of Cape Verde and Tanzania’s Commonwealth Games light-heavyweight bronze medallists Yusuf Changalawe accused some judges of questionable officiating in their fights.
Even Elizabeth Andiego’s controversial win over two-time Africa middleweight champion Rady Gramane raised eyebrows.
“My coach told me Gramane deserved to win,” said Moreira who was bitter at what she described as unfair officiating in her welterweight bout against DR Congo’s Brigitte Mbabi who was declared the winner on points.
“It was a good fight, she did better than ever but I deserved to win,” said Moreira.
“I won clearly first and third round scoring with clean punches, Brigitte was just aggressive but that’s nothing when you don’t land clean punches, she was only moving forward.”
Moreira cited the cruiserweight bout involving Angolan boxer Adriano Kiana and DRC’s Mbeli Nlandu as another bout poorly handled.
“The Angolan is a great technical boxer, and they were deducting points from him but he put issues beyond doubt by knocking out his opponent in the third round,” observed Moreira.
On his part, Changalawe said the judges should always be fair to enable boxers attain their goals.
“Boxers get discouraged when they know they’ve boxed well, controlled the fight and scored more points only to be announced the loser,” said Changalawe, adding: “I don’t complain for nothing, if I have lost clean I always accept.I’m so surprised Kabeji won, how? What did he do to win because I don’t know whom he hit to get the points.”
Equally disappointed by the officiating was Ivanusa Moreira’s coach Jorge Silva.
In a statement, Silva said:”I think judges are evaluating fights like in old times, giving credit to the one who fights and that is not boxing.
The winner of a boxing match is the one who lands more clean punches not the one who throws more punches, walk forward and agressiveness only works in case of tiebreaker.
“Unfortunately this happens to my boxer Ivanusa Moreira and I saw the same happen in the fight of Gramane from Mozambique. She won her fight against the Kenyan (Elizabeth Andiego).
“The African judges have to give more credit to the ones who work on the art of boxing not the ones throwing a lot punches. The whole world knows Africans can punch hard and got heart, it’s time to show them that we know how to box and score with clean punches.”
✍🏼 AFBC Communications