Kenya’s battle-hardened heavyweight Elly Ajowi and Uganda’s polished welter Shadir Bwogi have made it to the second round without throwing a punch, courtesy of byes following Thursday’s draws in Tokyo.
Ajowi, the 2019 African Games bronze medallist, now meets Cuba’s Julio la Cruz on July 27. The Cuban is the 2016 Rio Olympics light-heavyweight gold medallist. He won the world title four times 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 as well as Pan American Games title three times.
He has now moved up to heavyweight. Bwogi meets the winner of the preliminary bout between Azerbaijan’s Lorenzo Collazo v Esrkerkhan Madiev on July 27.
The National Police Service Corporal was outstanding during the Africa Zone 3 Boxing Championship held in Kinshasa, DR Congo in March.
The gold in DR Congo went down in history as his career best and adds up to bronze medals he won during the 2015 and 2019 editions of African Games in Congo Brazzaville and Rabat, Morocco respectively.
In March, he was also named the SJAK Sports Personality for the month of March.
Among other African boxers who got byes is Algeria’s 2015, 2017 Africa championships flyweight gold medallist Mohammed Flisi and Namibia’s Commonwealth Games lightweight champion Jonas Jonas who is also a bronze medallist in the 2019 African Games.
Jonas will fight the winner between Papua New Guinea’s John Ume and Australia’s Harv Garside on and Flisi takes on the winner between Ireland’s Brendan Irvine v Caalo Parlam from the Philippines on July 31.
In some of the fights featuring African boxers after Thursday’s draw, Ghana’s flyweight Selemanu Tetteh meets Rodrigo Rosa, Zambia’s Patrick Chinyemba battles Alex Winwood from Australia and Uganda’s middleweight David Ssemuju will clash with Algeria’s Younes Nemouichi, all the three bouts on July 26.
–KBC.CO.KE
