The Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) has announced a team of eight (8) boxers that will represent the country at the upcoming All African games.
Uganda will be one of the 54 nations that are expected to take part in the games and will participate in boxing, which has been among its (Uganda) successful games.
Among the team that was announced on Monday, August 12th, six will be men and the other two women.
The team was initially slated to have 20 boxers but due to financial constraints, only 8 could be accommodated.
Shadir Musa Bwogi who will contest in the Welterweight division, will captain the side.
Speaking at the announcement of the team, UBF president expressed his disgust for not having a full team.
“It is saddening and puts us in a very awkward position to select only eight bombers out of 20 which are supposed to make a full team, said Muhangi.
“National Olympic Committee and NCS say they don’t have money to support a full team.
“However much we tried to plead to them asking if they can give us a chance as a federation to find money to facilitate our others boxers, they still denied saying there have always been complications from it.”
Muhangi also assured the nation that the team will come back with medals;
“These athletes have been carefully selected, we want to assure Ugandan that the team selected, I have high hopes into it and am sure they will bring a medal for us as usual.”
Each boxer who will win a medal at the games will be rewarded with a token of appreciation of UGX 1m.
It was also announced that two officials have been included in the team to take the number of Ugandan representatives to 10.
There will also be other two Ugandans curtsey of Internation Boxing Association (AIBA), these include President Muhangi as the Technical Officer and Kyiga Antonio who will be among the referees.
Squad Announced
Men
-Champion Busingye (49 Kgs)-Light fly
-Masembe Isaac (56 Kgs)-Bantam
-Tukamuhebwa Joshua (60kgs)-Lightweight
Super heavy
-Greco Solomon (9O+ Kgs)-Super heavy
Welterweight
-Shadir Musa Bwogi-Team captain. (69kgs)-Welterweight
-Kavuma David Semujju (75kgs)-Middleweight (75Kgs)
Women
-Nalia Julia (54Kgs)-Bantam Weight
Baleke Hellen (75 Kgs)-Middleweight
Officials
Head coach: Meddie Mulandi (KBC)-2star AIBA certified coach.
Assistant: Mercy Mukankusi- Star1 coach in waiting.
What you need to know about the All African games 2019
The 12th African Games will take place from 19 to 31 August 2019 in Rabat, Morocco. This will be the first time that the African Games will be hosted by Morocco.
The games will schedule on September 2019. Accra, Nairobi and Lusaka announced that they would bid for these Games, but none of them were selected.
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea was initially chosen to organise the 2019 African Games at the Second Ordinary Session of the Specialist Technical Committee on Youth, Culture and Sports, which was held at the headquarters of the African Union, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 13 to 17 June 2016.
However, Equatorial Guinea was unable to host the Games due to economic problems. Lusaka, the capital of Zambia was later speculated to host the Games but refused, citing lack of facilities. In July 2018, Rabat, Morocco was selected to replace Malabo, Equatorial Guinea as host of the 2019 edition.
