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Ricky Zililo, [email protected]

FOUR Zimbabwean amateur boxers are representing the country at the lucrative International Boxing Association (IBA) World Boxing Championships which started on Monday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

The quartet of Wisdom Dube (featherweight), welterweight boxer Lwazi Mpofu of Tshaka in Bulawayo, Harare’s bantamweight pugilist Hillary Josamu and Luckmore Kamoto, who competes in the lightweight division is part of 538 athletes drawn from 107 countries participating in the championships.

The competition whose official opening was on Monday will end on May 14.

Preliminary rounds are set to run up to May 10, followed by the semi-finals slated for May 12 with the final on May 14.

Arvian Mathe, Zimbabwe Boxing Federation secretary general said besides picking points for rankings, the country’s participants are in line for a huge payout if they storm into the top three of their divisions.

Gold medallists in each division will get a cool US$200 000, with the losing finalists walking away with US$100 000 while bronze medallists will take home US$50 000.

“This is the world’s biggest amateur boxing tournament and as Zimbabwe we are represented by four boxers – Dube, Mpofu, Josamu and Kamoto, two coaches (Marko Sibanda from Bulawayo and Alexander Kwangwari of Harare.

Stephen Masiyambumbi who is one of the top continental referees will be officiating at the IBA World Boxing Championships.

“IBA introduced prize money at the 2021 Men’s World Championships and 2022 Women’s World Championships as an incentive for boxers to be rewarded at the highest level of the amateur sport.

There are attractive purses and we hope our boxers will do well. We sent four who we selected from tournaments we held and we believe these guys will stand the heat,” said Mathe.

The ZBF official said lack of resources restricted them from sending boxers for all the 13 categories. — @ZililoR