Former All Africa Games middleweight boxing bronze medallist, Daniel Shisia, powered his way into the medals bracket at the African Olympic qualifiers in Algiers on Thursday night.
In another bout, former All Africa Military Games featherweight gold medallist, David Munyasia, was defeated by Ghanaian Prince Octopas Dazanida 16-14 on points.
Kenya's captain, light flyweight Suleiman Bilali, was due to make his first outing last night against Shiba Simanga of Swaziland while light welter Rayton Okwiri will be in action tonight against a Moroccan opponent.
Speaking on telephone on Friday, coach George Gichuki said he was impressed by the manner in which Shisia displayed clean boxing which earned him a convincing 19-6 points win over Marco Saliku Biemba of the DR Congo. he advanced into the semi-finals of the middleweight (75kgs) category which had eight entries.
Shisia opened his campaign taking the lead 6-1 on points in round and kept on with the same tempo leading 8-3 in the second and piled up the pressure. Shisia will meet a Ghanaian opponent in the semi-finals on Monday.
Gichuki said it was by back luck that Munyasia lost his bout by just two points. The first round the score was 3-3 points, second round 4-6, third round 8-8 and the fourth and last round he went 14-16 in favour of Munyasia's opponent.
The featherweight (57 kgs) category had 12 entries. A win for Bilali, the reigning All Africa Games light flyweight gold medallist, against his Swaziland opponent will place him in the semi finals. Nine fighters are battling for qualification from this weight category.
Okwiri's weight category has attracted 12 entries. If he wins tonight, he will take on Pedro Hassim Simon of Tanzania who defeated an Ethiopian Desta Towole on Wednesday.
According to the format of the Beijing Olympics qualifications, all the finalists - gold and silver medallists - in the light fly, fly, bantam, feather, light, light welter, welter, middle, light heavy, heavy and super heavy will qualify for the Olympics.Semi-final losers in the light fly, fly, bantam, feather, light, light welter, welter and middle will meet again to determine who gets the bronze medals.
In all, 29 boxers will qualify for the Olympics from the Algeria tournament. The same format will be used in the next continental qualifiers slated in Windhoek from March 22 to April 2.
Again, 29 boxers will qualify. In the first Olympic qualifiers in Chicago only two boxers - a Moroccan and Egyptian - qualified from the pool of 80 boxers from other four continents. Kenya failed to take part because of lack of funds.
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