The Bombers team going for the September 4-19 22nd edition of the All Africa Games in Congo Brazzaville won’t have four of the boxers that represented Uganda at the Africa Confederations Boxing Championship Early this month in Morocco.
Mike Ssekabembe, Willy Kyakonye, Rogers Semitala and, Hassan Abdul all failed to make the team that left on Sunday morning for the city of Brazzaville.
The former two were knocked out of their semifinal fights while in Morocco and according to AIBA’s medical regulations, they will need 28-40 days of rest before they can make a comeback.
While it’s not yet clear why Ssemitala and Abdul were dropped from the team even after government availed seven tickets for the fighters instead of the nine that the Uganda Boxing Federation had initially requested for.
Ssemitala captained Uganda at the 2014 Commonwealth Games is Glasgow together with the continental competition in Morocco, but head coach Dick Katende tried to explain.
The reason we changed and brought new faces is because we were advised against taking some of our boxers (Ssekabembe and Kyakonye) but also we want to have two pools of teams with varying weights, that will give us options in diffirent weight categories in the future
In the absence of Ssemitala, Fazil Juma Kagwa was named captain of the team and will lead six other boxers in quest for medals.
Light Heavy Kennedy Katende who was in Morocco and delivered one of Uganda’s five medals made the team.
The others are Light Weight Tonny Mukiibi, Welterweight Nasser Bukenya, Middleweight Regan Ssimbwa, Super Heavy Paul Kayondo and Bantamweight Nasil Bashir. Juma believes that despite the new faces the team will be able to compete.
We are going for war, some of the fighters were going to meet, we met in Morocco, some we even fought against them, so it won’t be completely a new experience some of us, but we shall also try to give hints to our colleagues who are new to the team
Juma and Bashir are the only surviving boxers from the team that competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow were the former together with Ssekabembe won bronze.
At the last edition in Maputo, light flyweight Roland Serugo won bronze as Uganda were ranked joint 10th together with Ethiopia Kenya and Lesotho.
Team of Boxers fro the All Africa Games in Congo Brazaville
Tony Mukiibi – Light Walter
Nasser Bukenya – Walter weight
Regan Ssimbwa – Middleweight
Kennedy katende – Light heavy
Paul kayondo – Super heavy
Fazil Juma – Light flyweight
Nasil Bashir – Bantamweight