Boxing - Keddy Agnes fights for Olympic ticket |22 February 2020

Seychellois hard hitter Keddy Agnes is in Dakar, Senegal taking part in the African boxing qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and will hope to be among the first to book their tickets to the XXXII Olympiad.

The best boxers of the African continent – 218 athletes from 39 nations – are competing at the Dakar Arena for 33 Olympic quota places at this year’s Olympics. The event is being organised by the IOC Boxing Task Force (BTF), in cooperation with Dakar’s local organising committee and the Senegalese National Olympic Committee.

Sportsman of the Year 2018 Keddy Agnes is fighting to qualify for a first appearance at the Olympic Games. He is being accompanied by coach Gerry Legras who represented the country at the Olympics in his heydays.

He is expected to be in action today in the 91+kg weight category against Cabo Verde boxer Davilson Dos Santos Morais who competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the men's super-heavyweight event, in which he was eliminated in the round of 16 by Joe Joyce.

There are 11 boxers in this division and in the event of a win in this afternoon’s session he will progress to the quarterfinals where he will meet Tshikeva Kimbembi who won a bye.

Agnes’ and Legras’ trip is being sponsored by the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga).

The Tokyo 2020 boxing tournament will feature 286 boxers – 186 men and 100 women – competing in 13 weight classes – eight for men and five for women. After the African qualifying event, three additional continental qualifying events will follow in Amman, Jordan (Asian/Oceania qualifier, March 3-11), London, Great Britain (European qualifier, March 14-24) and Buenos Aires, Argentina (Americas qualifier, March 26 to April 3).

A fifth and last competition, the final world qualifying event, will be held in Paris, France, from May 13-20.

There will be 278 Olympic quota places up for grabs at the qualifiers, and an additional 8 quota places will be assigned by the tripartite commission.

Gerard Govinden