adminGilbert Munetsi Sports Correspondent
HARARE Province are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to retain the yesteryear glory of the country’s boxing champions, and testimony to this is a 20-bout preparatory tournament held at Mverechena Hotel gardens in Domboshawa on Saturday.
The tournament was hosted in partnership with Hardrock Boxing Promotions.
With a national boxing federation yet to be in place following the dissolution of the Lovemore Malianga-led one, local stables have since taken it upon themselves to mobilise resources to make the sport happen.
Since the beginning of the year, there has been a total of eight tournaments held in Harare Metropolitan, Kwekwe and Chitungwiza.
Tournament co-ordinator Isa Phiri said Harare’s below par performance – which saw it settle a distant fourth position at last year’s edition of the national games – has been a great cause for concern hence the need to sharpen the team’s skills ahead of the same event this year.
The Zimbabwe National Youth Games for 2016 will be hosted by Mashonaland West between August 13-21 and in the discipline of boxing, Harare have in camp a contingent of 18 medal hopefuls, with six of them being girls.
But it was the decentralization aspect that added life to rural Domboshawa last Saturday (more famed for clubbing than recreation) as hundreds of locals flocked into the hotel for a treat of a fists-filled night.
And the boxers did not disappoint at all.
Fortunes on the bill were mixed for Arifonso Zvenyika who in a catchweight bout, witnessed from the corner his son, Arifonso (Junior), lose by a split points decision to Kudakwashe Rambo of Powerhouse.
The lanky “Mosquito” (Junior), though with evident flashes of his title-winning trainer father on show, had lack of stamina to blame as he could not endure the tussle through the progressing rounds.
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