By SANDRA MWILA and RONALD CHALWE
KNOCKOUT specialist Mbachi Kaonga sailed through to the quarter-finals at the ongoing 2016 Africa Boxing Olympics qualifying tournament in Cameroon after defeating Cedric Massala of Congo Brazzaville.
Kaonga won the fight on a unanimous point decision on Sunday evening as Zambian pugilists’ good performance continued at the competition with Emmanuel Ngoma having earlier won his fight on the same day.
Ben Muziyo, a Commonwealth Games and All-Africa Games bronze medalist clobbered Londgi Arignany of Gabon in the middleweight contest to keep alive hopes of qualifying to the Rio 2016 Olympics.
By press time, Muziyo was taking on tournament second ranked boxer Abaka Nickson Otieno of Kenya while Caristo Bwalya was up against Mokamou Mayeleti of Gabon.
Zambian female boxer Juliana Kasonka will today step into the ring to face Ezzahraoui Zohra of Morrocco.
The top three finishers in each men weight category will qualify to the Olympics but the case is tight in the women event where only the gold medallist advances.
Meanwhile, in the judo Olympics qualifiers, Abigail Chindele is still on track to qualify for the Olympics despite her loss at the just ended African Judo Open held in Casablanca, Morocco.
Chindele won her first fight against El Qorachi Fatima Zahra of Morocco but lost her second match to Payet Laetitia of France and had a chance to win a bronze medal but tumbled to Algerian Saidi Sabrina.
But despite the defeats, Chindele is ranked seventh in Africa and 89th in the world, a move that has excited Zambia Judo Association general secretary Mabvuto Ng’uni, who said the win helped the judoka consolidate her position on the continent.
The International Judo Federation (IJF) qualification rule states that if the athlete qualifies through direct qualification, the quota place will be reallocated to the next best ranked athlete.
He said even Boas Munyonga and Mathews Punza were still in contention.