He will lead the Black Bombers onslaught for that elusive overall position in the African Games
Ghana’s wonderboy at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Samuel Takyi is reportedly back in the national team to lead them in their quest to make a big impression at home in next month’s African Games in Accra.
Authoritative sources told AFBC Communications Takyi, the fourth Ghanaian boxer to win an Olympic medal – featherweight bronze at the Tokyo Olympics – is currently training with the Black Bombers in readiness for the “carpet bombing” mission in Accra.
It’s understood he will fight in the light-welterweight division.
This means they’ll be fire in this weight class loaded with tough boxers. There’s two-time Africa champion Algeria’s Jugurtha Ait Bekkah, DR Congo’s explosive puncher Fiston Mulumba Mbaya, Nigeria’s promising southpaw Ridwan Ige, South Africa’s punching machine John Masamba, Eswatini’s Moscow-trained Thabiso Dlamini and Cameroon’s Mohamed Oumarou who showed flashes of brilliance at last year’s World Championships in Tashkent.
For all their boxing prowess, Ghana have yet to win the overall crown in the African Games. Whether Takyi will enable them clinch the crown this time around remains to be seen.
The 24-year-old Takyi ended Ghana’s 49-year-drought to win bronze in Tokyo, the fourth Olympic boxing medal for Ghana since Prince Amartey’s middleweight bronze at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Takyi’s decisive 3-2 quarter-final victory over Columbian southpaw, Ceiber David Avila, assured him of a bronze medal in the semis. He lost to Duke Ragan of the USA in the last four to emerge the only medallist out of 49 boxers from Africa who participated in the Tokyo Olympics. Had he defeated Ragan, Takyi, the son of a fishmonger Eunice Smith, would have become the second Ghanaian boxer to punch his way to the Olympic finals after Clement Quartey in 1960 in Rome. Quartey won a silver after losing to Bohumil Nemecek of Czechoslovakia.
With Olympic bronze under his belt, Takyi’s next goal was to graduate to the paid ranks but some Ghanaians in the boxing fraternity were against him turning professional. Takyi himself was also undecided.
Ghana’s former WBA welterweight champion Ikey Quartey added his voice on Takyi’s pro move by saying the Olympic bronze medallist should be left alone to decide on his own whether or not he wants to fight bare-chested.
Eventually Takyi decided he will turn pro. According to boxrec, a website for updated records of professional and amateur boxers, Takyi is so far unbeaten in three fights.
Ghana’s Samuel Takyi (left) trading leather with Columbian southpaw David Avila at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Source: AFBC Communications
