No ‘Italian job’ for boxers

The team was set to leave for Italy's Busto Arsizio tomorrow. However, the change sees the team forgoing the qualifiers to instead focus on the African Games. BoBA president, Gilbert Khunwane told Mmegi that changes were made due to overlapping schedules. The world qualifiers are scheduled for February 29 to March 12, while the African Games take place from March 8 to 23.

“We had wanted to send two teams, with one team going to the Olympics' first world qualification tournament in Italy while the other team was to compete at the African Games in Ghana. The plan was affected by financial challenges,” he said. Botswana had previously competed at the Africa qualifiers held in Dakar, Senegal, in September.