Boxers get Olympic final punch

Malawi’s prospect of securing 2012 London Olympic qualification is getting slim after three boxers failed to travel to Morocco for the qualifying tournament due to Maba’s failure to secure flights.

Malawi Boxing Association (Maba) vice-chairperson Henry Sakala on Friday said they could not secure flights to Casablanca for George Kandulo, Steve Maliko, Alick Gogodo and coach Andy Muyaya.

The qualifying tournament started Friday in Casablanca.

“After exhausting all efforts, we are hereby unable get flight to Morocco, therefore, our team is not travelling and at the same time we have missed this last qualifying Olympic Games,” Sakala wrote in a press release on Thursday.

The boxers have also missed an opportunity to earn K500 000 ($3 000) if they secured London qualification and K1 million ($6 000) if they brought a medal from the competition. MOC put the incentive to encourage athletes’ excellence.

Maba’s latest incident echoes experiences of other sports associations such as taekwondo which did not know the actual date for the event.

Maba recently received K2 million ($12 000) from President Joyce Banda.

The country’s only hope of securing qualification rests with swimmers who are participating at the Ninth Cana Championship in Mozambique and runners Ambwene Simkonda, Suzen Tengatenga and Chancy Master.

If these fail to meet qualifying standards, MOC will resort to sending four athletes—two males and two females—on Olympic solidarity.