Boxing News of Friday, 13 September 2002

Source: GNA

Bombers Coach off to Budapest

The coach of the national amateur boxing team, the (Black Bombers), Ofori Asare left Accra last Tuesday for a three-month international boxing-coaching course in Budapest, Hungary. The course, which commenced last Wednesday at the Institute of Coaching and Sports Education at the Semmelweis University, is expected to end on December 4. While in Hungary, coach Asare is expected to acquire skills in sports psychology and physiology apart from the special training he will receive in boxing coaching.

Speaking to the Graphic Sports some few hours before his departure, coach Asare expressed his appreciation to the Ghana Olympics Committee, the Ghana Amateur Boxing Association and the National Sports Council for granting him the opportunity and promised to excel at the end of the course.

He noted that the course is a good opportunity for him to improve upon his coaching skills saying "this will assist me to correct my past mistakes, widen my horizon and impart the new experience that I will acquire from the course to the Bombers."

Coach Asare emphasised that he will do his best to explore all the necessary avenues to obtain new talents that will be beneficial to the Bombers noting "it is through such means that the standard of amateur boxing can be raised in the country."

The GABA coach, who is expected to miss the Africa zone three competition slated for Cotonou, Benin, from September 22 to 30 intimated that he had already psyched up his boys for the competition and expressed optimism that they will excel.

According to him, he had programmed the game plan of the Bombers for the competition with his assistants and believed that they will follow suit to ensure an overwhelming victory for the boys in Benin.

He recounted his experience with the Bombers in a similar competition in Togo where the eight-member squad that represented the country returned home with seven medals comprising four gold, two silver and a bronze.

Meanwhile, the Bombers are billed to engage their Greater Accra counterparts in a special justifier at the Prisons Canteen next Wednesday.

All the 16-member GABA squad will be given the opportunity to partake in the justifier after which a full team of 12 boxers will be selected to represent the country at the Africa zone three competition.