Zimbabwean amateur boxers got two gold, three silver and three bronze medals at the Zone 4 Championships that ended on Saturday in Maputo, Mozambique.
Seven countries, Botswana, South Africa, Seychelles, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and hosts Mozambique took part at the week-long tournament.
Mozambique were the overall winners with five gold medals, followed by South Africa, while Zimbabwe were third. Zimbabwe had eight boxers at the championships where Future Maziya and Brendon Benet got gold in the welterweight and light welterweight divisions.
Melisa Matanhire (bantamweight), Caroline Dube (middleweight) and Asani Milanzi (bantamweight) were silver medallists, while Evans Husavihwevhu (lightweight), Monica Mnkandla (lightweight) and Tinashe Majoni (yweight) returned home with bronze medals.
Stephen Masiyambumbi, the Zimbabwe amateur boxing technical director, was impressed with the pugilists’ performances and believes the future looks bright for the sport.
“The boxers did well considering that most of them were participating for the first time at the regional championships. The fact that all members of our team got medals shows that the potential in boxing is big and we could have brought home more medals had we travelled with a bigger squad. Mozambique finished with five gold medals and South Africa, who had 15 entrants compared to our eight, were second with two gold medals. We were third and I believe we could have done better, maybe first or second had we travelled with many boxers,” said Masiyambumbi.
The boxers that represented Zimbabwe in Mozambique were selected in an inter-provincials tournament held at Sizinda Beer Garden in Bulawayo on February 10.
Masiyambumbi said they intend to send boxers to the Nelson Mandela tournament to be held in South Africa in April.
