Ongare built a boxing dream

Nairobi – A mother at 12, raised in Nairobi’s gritty suburbs to survive by her fists, Christine Ongare (above) dreams of becoming the first African woman to win an Olympic medal in boxing.

The 27-year-old Kenyan will have her chance in Tokyo – her first Games, and a moment she still cannot believe is coming true.

“I thought many times about giving up...but I continued the journey because I believed where I came from was more difficult than where I was going,” Ongare said after training at a gym in the Kenyan capital.

Standing at 1.57 metres tall and weighing 51 kilograms, Ongare cut a diminutive figure growing up in Eastlands, one of Nairobi’s rougher postcodes.

Life was not easy growing up in such an unforgiving environment. Ongare said girls would be physically and sexually abused, and she had to learn from a young age to fend for herself.

“I am the last born, we are four siblings. The rest were not around, so that made me be more tough, because I had no one to defend me,” she said.

“Be it a girl or a boy, whoever came on my side, it didn’t matter for me whether he was big or small, therefore I did all the means to try and defend myself.”

At 12, she fell pregnant with her son Maxwell, a chapter of her life she isn’t as comfortable discussing.

The infant boy was raised by Ongare’s mother, who took on the responsibility so her daughter could return to school.

“My son doesn’t call me mum, he calls me by my name. He calls my mum, ‘mum’,” she said, laughing nervously.

As a teenager, she tried football and gymnastics but it was discovering boxing that sent her life in a different direction.

The sport gave Ongare a newfound “resilience” and helped her cope with the troubles at home, said Benjamin Musa, head coach of Kenya’s Olympic boxing squad.

“That’s what she really needed to get out of the tough life she was going through,” said Musa, who has known Ongare since her early fighting days.

Ongare was first introduced to boxing through BoxGirls Kenya, an association in Eastlands that helps empower young girls through gloves and sparring.

It has been a life’s ambition for Ongare, who cannot imagine what direction her life would have taken without boxing.

Now the flyweight boxer has earned her ticket to Tokyo. –