Three bronze medals, a total of five knockouts, six boxers punching their way to the quarterfinals, and finishing 15th summarizes the national boxing team ‘The Bombers’ performance at the just concluded Africa Games in Ghana.

The bombers that fielded seven boxers at the 13th edition of the games had a men’s team in light flyweight Innocent Tumusiime, featherweight Kassim Murungi, light welterweight Innocent Amoko, welterweight Owen Kibira and captain light middleweight Muzamir ‘Mr Take Over’ Ssemuddu.

The women’s team had a duo of featherweight Sharua Ndagire and lightweight Erina Namutebi.

Of the seven, only Ndagire lost in the first preliminary round as the rest booked a berth in the games' quarterfinals.

Debutant Tumusiime punched his way to the medal bracket and was Uganda's first boxer to reach this far at the games.

The KCCA Boxing Club sensation was later joined by Murungi and Ssemuddu who were donning the bombers' colours for their second time after the 2023 Africa Boxing Championship in Yaounde.

Their three bronze medals earned the team a 15th finish of the 32 African countries that fielded boxing teams at the games.

Besides the three medals, the bombers left another mark in Ghana, registering a total of five knockouts.

Murungi came on top with two, knocking out Liberia’s Timothy Williams and Ghana’s Omar Abdul.

Ssemuddu's atomic right overhand sent Togo’s Akoussan Holonou wobbling and into a first-round KO.

This forced organizers to immediately send the Ugandan boxer for a doping test that turned out negative.

Tumusiime and Amoko stopped Lesotho’s Retselisitsoe Kolobe and Seychelles’ Bouzin Jovanie Antoine respectively.

One may downplay their performance the fact that the bombers had settled for a 9th finish at the 2019 games in Rabat, Morocco.

But putting into account the circumstances of their ‘no preparation’ at all towards the games, they are worthy to sit at the table of men.

Moses Muhangi, the Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) president tops the list of boxing stakeholders who are impressed with the team’s performance.

“I’m impressed with the bomber’s performance in Ghana. They defied all the odds given the frustration they endured without any preparation”. Muhangi noted.

“If our team was prepared well like how we saw the football teams that even had a chartered plane, we would have performed better.”

The big picture

Since Abdul Tebazaalwa and Muhamed Kizito alias Sande Swico at the 1999 games in South Africa, no Ugandan boxer has won gold at the African games.

Featherweight Isaac Masembe and middleweight David Ssemujju came close to breaking the now over 20-year jinx during the 2019 Rabat Games, only to lose at the finals.