For the second time is as many years, there will be no Nigerian boxer in the World Boxing Championships ring coming up later in the year.
Seven Nigerian boxers from the Nigerian Army traveled to the 2017 African Boxing Championship in Congo Brazzaville which started on June 17th and all came back failing to qualify for the World Boxing Championships, which is scheduled to commence in August in Hamburg, Germany.
None of the boxers were able to get to the semifinals of the tournament which sees the top four boxers in each division directly qualify for Germany.
Egowa Richard lost to Moroccan Ouahdi Chouaib in the quarter finals of the Men’s Light Heavy (81kg) while Umeh Osita lost his Men’s Welter (69kg) fight to Clair Merven from Mauritus
The winner of the 2016 Lagos Governor’s Belt, Rilwan Lawal lost the men’s lightweight 5-0 on points to Morocco’s Mohamed Hamout.
Nigeria could not attend last year’s tournament because funds were not available to the team to travel to Morocco for the African Championship thereby missing the World Championship in Doha, Qatar.
The Nigerian Boxing Federation (NBF) were also unable to source for funds to travel to Brazzaville with the fully selected team of 20 Boxers in camp so the Nigerian Army had to sponsor their own boxers to represent the country.