DAVID GOMBE
The Uganda Olympic Committee has confirmed that David Kavuma Ssemujju and Catherine Nanziri are the two Boxing Athletes who have qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
The two Boxers have made it Tokyo through the Boxing taskforce Rankings.
The statement from the Uganda Olympic Committee Secretary General Beatrice Ayikoru reads,
“Greetings to you from the Uganda Olympic Committee. I write to inform you that two boxing athletes have qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics through the Boxing taskforce Rankings.”
“We duly accept the quota places in order for then to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.”
Read a statement from UOC.
Ssemujju is a middleweight Boxer (60Kg to 75Kg) while Nanziri is in the Flyweight category (48kg to 51Kg).
They join Bombers captain Shadir Musa who already made it Tokyo Olympics.
The Bombers skipper Shadir unanimously overcame Ghana’s Lartey Jessie during a third place Box off bout in the men’s Welterweight to book his ticket to the global games in Tokyo.
For starters, during the Boxing Africa Olympic qualifiers held in Senegal last year, Ssemujju failed to prevail through but he put up tremendous performances making it to the semifinals. He also lost to Cameroonian Wilfried Nsengue on split decision.
Ssemuju also put up astonishing performances at the 2019 All Africa Games held in Rabat, Morocco with him and Isaac Masembe reaching the finals to break a 20-year jinx.
Until then no Ugandan boxer had ever reached the finals of the continental Games since Abdul Tebazaalwa, Muhammad Kizito and Adam Kassim in Johannesburg 1999.
Ssemuju and Masembe missed gold by a whisker.
The middleweight boxer lost 3-2 to Moroccan fighter Tarik Allali in the final.
Nanziri on the other hand lost to Kenya’s Christine Ongere on points during the Africa Olympic qualifiers in the women flyweight play off. She becomes the first Ugandan female boxer to qualify for the Olympic games.
The postponed Tokyo Olympics will be held from July 23 to August 8 in 2021.The Summer Games had been scheduled to run from July 24 to August 8th last year, but it were suspended due to the outbreak of the global Covid-19 Pandemic.
