Zone IV tournament stepping stone for SA boxers dreaming of Rio

LONDON 2012 Olympian Ayabonga Sonjica spearheads a 12-strong SA boxing team in Mozambique next week bidding to get to the Rio Games in August.

The SA Zone IV tournament in Maputo from Monday to Friday will be used as a springboard for the African Olympic qualifying tournament in Cameroon in March.

“They must win silver medals in Maputo to get to the qualifying tournament,” head coach Johan Prinsloo said at the training camp in Pretoria this week.

“If they can’t win medals at Zone IV, then how will they win medals at the continental competition?”

Boxers will need to win at least a bronze medal in Cameroon to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, according to the continental qualifying standards agreed between the International Olympic Committee and the International Boxing Association (Aiba), the governing body for open boxing, the term by which amateur boxing is now known because it incorporates professionalism at elite level.

But the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) has already decreed it won’t accept continental qualifying options for any sports, insisting that South Africans must qualify through tougher international standards.

SA’s boxers missed their only chance for international qualification, at the world championships last year, because the national federation, the SA National Boxing Organisation (Sanabo), couldn’t afford to send a team.

“That [Olympic] dream is still on,” insisted Prinsloo.

“We will still have discussions with Sascoc and explain that we couldn’t get to the world championships.

“The tournament in Africa is now our only chance to get to the Olympics.”