Boxers Akinyi, Ochola book Tokyo Olympic slots

Elizabeth Akinyi & Elly Ajowi Ochola are the latest entrants to Team Kenya for Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games.

The IOC Boxing Task Force in a mail to Olympics Kenya confirmed that the two boxers have earned a quota place to the Games through the BTF Rankings (Boxing Task Force).

Elizabeth in the Women, Welter (64kg to 69kg and Elly in the Men, Heavy (81kg to 91kg).

They were both bronze medalists at the Africa qualifiers that were held in Dakar, Senegal in February 2020.

The two boxers now join Nick Okoth who will compete in Men’s Feather (52-57kg) and Christine Ongare in Women’s Fly (48-51kg), who earned automatic qualification status during the African Qualifiers where they were both finalists.

The Chef-De-Mission to Tokyo Olympics, Mr. Waithaka Kioni, acknowledging the quotas said, ‘We congratulate the two boxers for earning a place in the team to Tokyo. We acknowledge that the Hit Squad has been training very diligently since the resumption of sports, and they deserve these two slots that they have been allocated by IOC. Even though the final qualification event that was to be held in Paris was cancelled, with this development, we would like to encourage the entire team to continue training hard, and support the four boxers who will represent Kenya in Tokyo in July. We congratulate the Boxing Federation of Kenya and we will ensure we do our part to give the team the best preparation.’

In February 2021, The IOC’s Boxing Task Force cancelled the Final World Qualifier that was scheduled to be held in Paris in June, owing to Covid-19 restrictions.

The Task Force restructured the remaining qualification path, with the 53 quota places originally assigned to the Final World Qualifier to be distributed equally across all regions (Africa, Asia/Oceania, Americas and Europe) and weight categories, based on the BTF Rankings at the conclusion of each respective continental event.

16 boxers of the Hit Squad leave tomorrow for Kinshasa, Congo, for a Zone 3 Boxing Championships that will be played between 20^th and 26^th March 2021.

This will be the first time the team competes in over a year, and they aim to use it to gauge their match fitness.