Boxing will finally return to schools’ sporting calendar in September, ending years of calls for its inclusion in the sporting curriculum, with KuGompo City set to lead the fray.
The milestone was revealed by former world champion Welcome Ncita, who is heading the programme together with another boxing legend, Vuyani Bungu, from the sports department of the Buffalo City municipality.
Ncita and Bungu have been driving the programme for years, encountering bureaucratic stumbling blocks until they received the green light after the success of the Duncan Village schools boxing league, which launched in May.
The league, which is spreading like wildfire in the township schools with more on the verge of joining, is the brainchild of ring announcer Siya Taho, who has integrated it into the municipality’s programme headed by Ncita and Bungu.
Taho said the league, which has been included as part of Wednesday’s schools sport, was run on a monthly basis and contested by juniors and youth in line with the open boxing regulations.
“The league has taken off in a big way, and we envisage it growing in leaps and bounds,” he said.
“We are grateful for its embrace by the BCM office of sport headed by boxing legends Welcome Ncita and Vuyani Bungu.”
The league was scheduled to resume at Ebenezer High School on Wednesday after the schools’ reopening, but due to inclement weather it has since been postponed.
Ncita said it was imperative for boxing, regarded as the number one sport in the province, to go back to school to help nurture talent while taking children off wayward activities.
“I am the product of school boxing, and back in the day we had no time to engage in unsavoury activities because we were kept busy,” he said.
“After school, all we thought about was to go to local boxing clubs to polish the technique.”
Ncita won the SA flyweight title at the age of 20 when he beat seasoned campaigner Johannes Miya of Johannesburg in 1986.
He later became the first world champion from the province which incorporated the Western Cape to form the Cape Province.
Ncita said the programme would model others in the world such as Japan, which is considered the best boxing nation due to its dominance of smaller divisions.
“Japanese boxers are the best in the world, especially in weight divisions such as mini-flyweight, junior-flyweight, flyweight, junior-bantamweight and bantamweight, which are also where our boxers campaign.
“They nurture talent from schools and tertiary level and by the time they turn professional, they are ready to conquer the world despite having few bouts.”
Indeed, SA boxer Ricardo Malajika will contest the vacant WBC junior-bantamweight title against Japanese Tomoya Tsuboi, who has fought just three times compared with Malajika’s 19 bouts.
Despite his novice record, Tsuboi will enter the bout as a favourite due to his illustrious amateur career, which was shaped by school boxing, for their September 27 clash.
The card also features Mdantsane’s Siyakholwa Kuse defending his WBC mini-flyweight belt against another unbeaten Japanese, Ryusei Matsumoto.
Daily Dispatch
