- Says they are incompetent
Former national boxing coach, Obisia Nwankpa, has lambasted the two coaches Team Nigeria took to Rio 2016 Games, Jeremiah Okorodudu and Anthony Konyegwachie, for leading the nation’s only boxing hope, Efe Ajagba, astray after the boxer lost out in the quarter-final.
Ajagba, lost to his super heavy weight opponent, Kazakhstan’s Ivan Dychko in their quarter-final bout on Tuesday.
Obisia said he was shocked to see the Nigerian boxer crash out at the crucial stage of the fiesta.
“I saw it coming. I advised the coaches on what to do but they did not listen to me. Ajagba is a one-way, one-style boxer. The coaches did not know how to prepare a promising boxer. They did not know how to build a boxer to fight at the global stage like Olympics,” Nwankpa said.
The former boxer said he advised the coaches to make Ajagba more aggressive and wicked.
He said they should have allowed him to suffer in order to know how to vent his anger on his opponent and beat him silly. “Unfortunately I did not see these qualities in him. I told them that they must have noticed that the Nigerian fights with only style and if he is destined to forge ahead in Brazil, I advised that Ajagba should change style to dazzle his opponent. The Kazakhstan camp have all Ajagba’s tapes. They trained their boxer with Ajagba’s weaknesses,” Nwankpa said.
He said since Ajagba was the only Nigerian boxer in Rio, the coaches had no excuses to fail.
“An heavyweight boxer must be prepared as a knockout specialist. There should be no waste of time on the bout. He should always stand as a ‘kill and go’ boxer. There is nothing more exhilarating for a boxing audience than to see a fighter hit the mat in a knockout. But being on the losing end of a KO punch can damage a lot more than a pugilist’s pride.”
Ajagba, who won bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, knocked his Trinidad & Tobago opponent Nigel Paul out in the first round to reach the quarterfinals.
