Mensah Skeptical On Boxing Medals At Olympics

A former Lagos State Boxing Chief Coach, Joe Mensah, has said that lack of standard facilities and equipment may rob the country of medals at the London Olympics Games.

The games are scheduled to run from July 27 to August 12.

Mensah told newsmen in Lagos that boxing as a sport did not have the right equipment to make boxers to excel a the Olympics.

The coach, who was also part of the handlers of the boxing team at their Benin camping site to prepare them for the games, lamented the obsolete equipment and facilities there.

“If what I saw in Etete, if nothing is done about the equipment and the facilities and the encouragement and the exposure, I am not sure we will come back with anything at the Olympic games”.

He also said the coaches should be given kudos’ for striving hard to train boxers and to produce champions without adequate equipment.

“My experience in that camp is just based on what we have upstairs, materially we are not equipped, there is no sparring gloves, there is no head-guard, there is no, what else, what are we talking on equipment now, zero.

“For you to access the standard of any boxer, I will have implored all the boxing journalists to pay a visit to Etete and see the what kind of facilities, what kind of equipment our boxers are training with and the kind of exposure the government have for them”.

He urged the government to expedite action on the procuring of sports equipment to aid the quest for medal haul at international competitions.

It was gathered that of five men and four women boxers, only two men and a female boxer qualified for the Olympics in Morocco and in China respectively.