Ghana’s National Amateur Men’s Boxing Team (Black Bombers) head coach Ofori Asare has spoken to the media and shared his opinion about the recent embarrassing capitulation suffered by his team at the 2024 Olympic qualifiers in Dakar Senegal.
Despite the fact that 12 boxers were all unsuccessful in making the Olympic team for the 2024 Paris Games, he believes that what Ghanaians are viewing as a “disaster” will mould the boxers for the future.
The Ghanaian team is comprised of six boxers from the Black Bombers and six from the Black Hitters, which is Ghana’s National Amateur Women’s Boxing Team. Seth “Freezy MacBones” Gyimah and Ornella Sathoud were the only two fighters based outside of Ghana.
Although Ghana’s performance in Senegal was not satisfactory, Ofori Asare acknowledges the challenges associated with participating in the African qualifiers, which differ from those of the Commonwealth Games and other tournaments. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic and highlights the positive takeaways from the qualifying series.
Our ladies, we know that we are now building the ladies for the competitions ahead, such as the African Games. We are trying to prepare them for those games.
All of them are new, except Ornella Sathoud. Sathoud, however got sick here and affected her performance. For now, we know that, we have created a good base and our next qualification, it shall be well for us. At least, both Boxers who came here are new [Freezy MacBones & Ornella Sathoud], some of them have never been to the African competitions before.
Joseph Commey has also never seen the African Championship, he realised that it is different from the Commonwealth games and others.
“New things are here, the Africans are more rough, everything here in Senegal is never like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games. I believe this qualification event in Dakar will serve the Boxers really well in the next qualification series.”
