The preliminary round of the boxing event in the National Sports Festival kicked off on Friday, after a one-day delay with a total of 52 bouts in the different categories.
The first bout saw Mammud Abdulsamad of Kwara state pitted against Abdullahi Abdulrahman of Borno state. The Kwara state representative dominated the fight and was declared the winner by technical knockout (KO) after his opponent gave up in the first round.
Speaking ACLSports.com after the fight, the Kwara State boxing coach, Mr. Michael James, said that he was not surprised about his boxer’s performance because he had extensively prepared him for this event.
He said that even though he was highly impressed with the victory, there were areas he needed to work on to become better if they were going to clinch the gold medal in the flyweight category at the end of the competition.
‘’By the Grace of God, we are expecting gold from him, because at the last festival we went to, he finished in the runner-up position. we worked on the reason he lost that fight, so we are very hopeful that he will be a gold medalist at the end of this competition’’ he said.
In another bout, Kehinde Akanmu of Niger State went head-to-head with Qudus Lateef of Lagos State, but the latter was declared the winner after a unanimous decision from all five judges. The Lagos boxer looked sharp and dominated the opening exchanges after the first round.
Although Akanmu tried to fight his way back into contention in the second and third rounds, he was overwhelmed and outclassed by the dominant Lateef who also sealed qualification to the next stage of the competition.
Three of the south-south representatives, Edo, Akwa-Ibom and Rivers state also booked their spots in the next round. The Edo boxer, Adeoti Fawas was awarded the victory after his opponent from Kaduna, Jerry Jones was disqualified while the Rivers representative, Adeagbo Michael defeated his opponent from Enugu, Sodiq Akinbode after two rounds.
Ukpono Bill of Akwa-Ibom was declared the winner by a split decision from the judges after an intensely contested bout with Owolewa Sadam of Ekiti state.
