🇹🇭 Countdown to 2nd World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Thailand from May 24 to June 2, 2024
ZAMBIA’S STEPHEN ZIMBA LEADS BANGKOK ONSLAUGHT, TEMBO ON BOARD
Stephen Zimba among the three boxers picked for the final Olympic qualifiers
Zambia’s Commonwealth Games silver medallist Stephen Zimba is among the three boxers to represent the Southern African country in the 2nd World Olympic Qualification tournament starting on May 24 in Bangkok, Thailand.
He joins DR Congo’s Africa Steve Kulenguka to mount a serious twin-pronged African challenge in the light-middleweight berth.
The other two Zambians heading to Thailand are African Games bronze medallist, flyweight Margaret Tembo (pictured left in action in Accra facing camera) and African Games silver medallist Mwengo Mwale (featherweight).
The names of the Bangkok-bound boxers were released today, (May 15) by the secretary-general of Zambia Boxing Federation, Bornwell Banda, who explained why only the three boxers are going to Thailand.
“They’re being sponsored by the National Olympic Committee of Zambia being scholarship holders,” said Banda.
Zambia’s successful head coach Wisdom Mudenda, who guided the team to fifth place in the African Games in Accra, will handle the three boxers to Bangkok.
He spoke to AFBC Communications from Lusaka on their preparations.
“We’re now in the last phase of our preps, boxers are doing intensive sparring sessions. In this phase the intensity has to be similar to the actual competition so that by Saturday once done with the sparring sessions, the intensity and volume will reduce and then boxers will be declared fit to box.
“After that intensity similar to the competition, we will then embark on sharpness of each individual boxer and weight-making. Otherwise the team is responding well to training looking forward to qualify for the Olympics.”
A delighted Tembo, a gold medallist in the minumweight division at the 2022 Africa Championships in Maputo, cannot wait for the qualifiers to battle it out with the world’s best in the flyweight class.
“I’m very excited to be in the team to fight in this high level competition,” said Tembo who has now landed a job in Zambia Defence Forces, joining his compatriots, among them Peter Zimba, Felistus Nkandu and Sergeant Patrick Chinyemba, the only Zambian boxer who has so far qualified for the Paris Olympics.
“I’m comfortable enough to fight at flyweight because this won’t be my first time, I know I’m capable of doing well. They say for you to be the best you have to beat the best so that’s what am going to do to beat the best in Bangkok.” Tembo has been representing the national team for the last six years.
Zimba made his international debut in the 2020 Africa Tokyo Olympic qualifiers in Dakar. He’s all out to make up for what happened at the African Games in Accra where he was disqualified for spitting his gumshield.
On DR Congo’s top Africa light-middleweight, Steve Kulenguka whom he could meet in Bangkok, Zimba said:”DRC opponent is not a factor, I’m prepared to meet any boxer in Thailand.”
Mwale, 19, is the youngest among the three boxers going to Bangkok.
He made his international debut for the senior team while still a youthful boxer at 17 years in the 2022 Zone 4 Championships in Maputo, winning a gold medal in the bantamweight division and in that same year won another gold in the 10-nation tournament in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He maintained his consistency by reaching the finals of the African Games in Accra, losing to Ghana’s world championshops quarter-finalist Amadu Mohamed at bantamweight.
Despite producing some good boxers such as Lottie Mwale, Julius Luipa, Tim Feruka, Lucky Mutale and Kennedy Mushoke Kanyanta, Zambia has so far won only one medal in the Olympics, a bronze through their late prolific flyweight southpaw, Keith Mwila, at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the USA. I first watched Mwila in action at the 1983 Africa Championships in Kampala where he won a gold medal in the light-flyweight class together with another rising African star, Kenya’s Ibrahim Bilali. From his scintillating show I knew Mwila was going places.
In addition to Mwila’s bronze, Zambian boxers have qualified for the Olympics quarter-finals four times through Julius Luipa 1972 Munich, Enock Chama 1980 Moscow, Chris Kapopo and Anthony Mwamba 1984 Los Angeles.
Patrick Chinyemba and Stephen Zimba made it to the round of 16 in Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Zambia have another chance of adding their second Olympics medal through their showboating flyweight Patrick Chinyemba, one of the world’s leading boxers in his respective weight division. They could be more if he’s joined by the three boxers heading to Thailand.
✍🏼 AFBC Communications