Kenya’s John Kyalo was overwhelmed by Benjamin Whittaker of England, who beat him on unanimous 5-0 points in their International Boxing Association (AIBA) World Championships middleweight bout in Hamburg, Germany on Friday night.
Kyalo was making his debut in the championships along with compatriot light flyweight Shaffi Bakari who was scheduled to face homeboy, Omar Ibrahim last night.
The other Kenyan pugilists in Germany, light weight Nick Okoth will be in action Sunday night against Brazilian boxer Wanderson De Olivieira.
The trio qualified for the prestigious amateur boxing event in June during the African Confederation Championships (AFBC) in Brazzaville, Congo where Okoth clinched a gold medal while Kyalo and Bakari settled for bronze medals as losing semi-finalists.
The current crop of Kenyan boxers are starved of international exposure and rely almost entirely on the national league which is also not as competitive as the yesteryears one that produced the likes of the late Robert Wangila who won Kenya her first ever Olympic boxing gold medal during the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
A number of regional boxing events such as East and Central Africa Boxing Championships, an annual event that brought together boxers from East and Central Africa and Brunner Urafika tournament that involved boxers from Kenya and Uganda are no more.
The Boxing Association of Kenya has also killed their own event, Kenya Open Championships which was used to pick national champions in all the weight categories, who would reign for a year and were supposed to defend their titles at the end of the year.
