The Kenya boxing team, Hit Squad’s campaign at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has officially ended.
Kenya’s last competitor at the quadrennial global showpiece, Elizabeth Andiego, was outwitted by Australian Caitlin Anne Parker at the National Exhibition Centre Hall 4 in Birmingham on Wednesday.
All the judges scored 5-0 in favour of Parker. Andiego switched to the middleweight division and cruised to the quarters without breaking a sweat after being handed a bye in the preliminaries on Saturday.
Her debacle came barely hours after compatriot 2018 bronze medalist Christine Ongare also lost to Canadian Priyanka Dhillon in the minimum weight category.
Four judges scored in favour of the Canadian with only one giving Ongare the nod. Africa Zone 3 bantamweight gold medalist, Hassan Shaffi Bakari became the second boxer to exit the 22nd edition of the Club Games on Tuesday.
Bakari went down 3-2 to Rukmal Prasanna in the round of 16 bantamweight division. Hit Squad captain Nick Okoth also lost his featherweight Round of 32 bouts to Guyanese Allicock Keevin.
Okoth, who was the first Kenyan boxer in the ring, was comprehensively beaten by Guyanese boxer Keevin Allicock in the featherweight thriller. All five judges scored 30-27 each in favour of Allicock.
The exit of the seasoned Hit Squad captain dealt the East African nation a huge blow given he was earlier tipped to replicate his performance at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Dehli, India where he bagged gold.
Hit Squad kicked off their campaign on a bizarre note after the organizers of the Club Games blatantly rejected their apparel on the eve of the competition.
In an exclusive interview, Boxing Federation of Kenya (BFK) Communications Director Dancun Kuria confirmed the incident, saying the trunks set aside for the Kenyan boxers were spurned for having a ‘Nike’ logo on the waistband.
Hit Squad’s flop was reminiscent of the 2020 Tokyo Games where the quartet of Nick Okoth, Elly Ajowi, Elizabeth Akinyi and Christine Ongare also returned home empty-handed after crashing out at an early stage.
The team’s show was a sharp contrast to the scintillating form they exhibited at the Africa Zone 3 Championship in Kinshasa Congo where both Andiego and Bakari stormed to the gold podium.
–the-star.co.ke
