Mnikelo Manqophe wearing black and white trunks exchanges blows with Fezeko Maginindane. Photo by Siyabonga Kalipa.
27 May 2014
Umanyano Boxing club hosted boxers from across Cape Town this past weekend when it held the Elite Boxing Championships in Vuyiseka High School in Philippi.
Boxing lovers braved the cold weather to come and witness their favourite fighters vie for gold medals.
There were 12 clubs in the championships. Umanyano Boxing Club were the hosts. The other clubs were: 9 Sai Boxing Club, Mfuleni Boxing Club, Brice’s Boxing Academy, University of the Western Cape, Extreme Boxing, Sisonke Boxing Club, New Generations, Ikamvalethu and Cape Peninsula University of Technology Boxing Club.
The event was open to amateurs, with each club limited to entering two boxers. After a long break after the qualifiers the finals got off to a flying start when light flyweights 18-year-old Mnikelo Manqophe from Khayelitsha’s 9 Sai Boxing Club came up against 17-year-old Fezeko Maginindane of Sisonke Boxing Club, which hails from Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay.
In the first round both boxers tried to read each other and few blows were exchanged. But when the bell rang for the second round the fight got a tense. Manqophe knocked out Maginindane towards the end of the second round to win the first final.
Manqophe said, “In the first round I was just looking at how he fights and I saw that he is not balanced in his stance. I then decided to knock him so we don’t drag the fight.” He added that ever since a man from his street introduced him to boxing he has never looked back and would love to be a national champion one day.
A distraught Maginindane said, “I didn’t know I was going to have two fights today and I fought the second fight with a headache I got from the first fight, which is why I didn’t get up when I fell. But the fight was not hard at all.”
Other results on the day were as follows:
In the Flyweight division S. Jelwana of 9 Sai Boxing Club won gold against M. Mfikili also from 9 Sai.
A. Sentile from Khayelitsha beat K. Mavela of CPUT to claim the Bantamweight medal.
In the Lightweight division JP. Maart from Brice’s Boxing Academy beat B. Khmbudzo
In the Light Welterweight final S. Blom from UWC beat S. Lunga of Umanyano Boxing Club.
S. Kota from UWC won the Middle Weight against R. Campbell of Brice’s Boxing Academy.
I. Milanovic and K. Stanley, both from Extreme Boxing, won medals by default.
The ladies Elite Boxers was also won by default by Nwabisa Tom from UWC and Akhona Gxokonyeka from Brice’s Boxing Academy.
There were no contestants in the Heavyweight division.