Boxing Champions Irked [Archives:2000/27/Sports]

archive
July 3 2000

In their first participation in 10 years, the Yemeni boxing team, comprising 4 boxers, came third in the Arab Boxing championship held in Cairo from May 18-24. Yemenis hailed the achievement of their team which they said was ‘unexpected’, in view of the very short training camp in Sana’a lasting only eight days and lack of adequate training equipment. However, despite these shortcomings, the team performed well against opponents from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan and came back home with bronze medals.
After their arrival, the athletes went straight to the Ministry of Youth and Sports complaining against the chairman of the Boxing Federation who accompanied them to Cairo. They expressed their dismay over his carelessness in organizing the team’s training and his misdemeanors before the championship was held. “He was more concerned about travel than achieving good results,” the members of the team reported.
The Yemen Times met with the members of the team and a member of the Federation to get the details and filed the following interviews:

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