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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Boxing Federation (ZBF) will hold its first event of the year, an amateur competition, in the resort town of Victoria Falls tomorrow.

Amateur boxers from the country’s 10 provinces, as well as the Zimbabwe National Army School of Sports will converge in Victoria Falls for the bouts that will enable pugilists to accumulate points for them to be considered for national teams.

Excitement has gripped the boxing fraternity, with all provinces reportedly confirming their participation. Stephen Masiyambumbi, ZBF technical director said what has also thrilled pugilists is that this will be the first tournament since suspension of all sporting activities due to Covid-19 in March last year.

He said the Victoria Falls tournament will be held under strict Covid-19 protocols, with participants and match officials expected to produce negative Covid-19 certificates that are less than 48 hours. “Everything is set for the Victoria Falls tournament. Because of Covid-19 protocols, we will have a limited number of boxers.

“We’ve been given clearance to finish the tournament by 6pm, meaning we will have limited bouts, about 25 bouts which means we will have about 50 boxers,” said Masiyambumbi. He said clubs had up to last night to submit their list of boxers as well as indicate if they have done Covid-19 tests.

“We are seized with matching boxers for the fights based on lists that we’ll get from provinces. Pairing is done using weight for easy categorisation of boxers. This way, we won’t have a problem of having too many boxers for the same category. We noticed that they forwarded less than 10 boxers per province from lists sent earlier. It’s good for complying with Covid-19 protocols,” Masiyambumbi said.

Some of the boxers expected to participate in the Victoria Falls competition are Ndabezinhle Phiri, Blessing Sibanda, Trade Nkomozabo, Zibusiso Nyoni, Agnes Kwashi, Rudo Maposa and Tendai Tigere. -@ZililoR