BASTIE IN GOOD START
Ackah Anthony
Graphic Online
Monday, AUG 11, 2008
Ghana
It was mixed fortunes for Ghana on Day One of boxing at the
Beijing Olympics last Saturday when Samir Bastie, fighting at light
heavyweight, sold a class act that speaks volumes about what future
awaits him when he turns professional.
However, his compatriots, middleweight Ahmed Saraku, and lightweight
Samuel Kotey Neequaye, fell by the wayside.
Exuding the confidence of an experienced boxer, Bastie used the early
stages of the opening round to size up his Nigerian opponent, Izobo
Dauda, who picked the first point of the round.
Having got a clear picture of who the opponent was, Bastie moved
straight into action and picked his points with great precision. This
got almost the entire packed hall behind him as cheers of approval
and encouragement rang round it.
Before the second round was over, Bastie had dazed Izobo with a
barrage of heavy punches that sent him to the canvass twice, but on
each occasion he survived the referee’s count. Bastie took a 5-3 lead
at the end of the round.
Bastie obliged the crowd’s non-stop cheering for quality stuff from
him with more punishing punches in the third round that definitely
took a toll on the staying power of the Nigerian who visited the
canvass one more time, never to return. He got back to his feet all
right but the referee decided Izobo lacked the capacity to stand
toe-to-toe with Bastie and so handed the Ghanaian victory via stoppage.
Fighting earlier, Ahmed Saraku apparently was oblivious of the fact
that at the Olympic Games he didn’t have the luxury of all the time
in the world to recover from point loss after dropping his guard too
often against Armenian Andranik Hakobeyan.
He allowed the Armenian to dictate the pace of the fight and his
late rally to make up for lost ground was an exercise in futility
as Hakobeyan stretched his point build-up and won 14-8 at the end of
the fight.
Like Bastie, Saraku enjoyed partisan support among the Chinese fans
anytime he landed a point, but he always allowed the opponent to
widen the gap anytime he appeared to be making a great comeback to
deal with the deficit against him.
But a more bitter moment awaited Ghana yesterday when Neequaye was
knocked out in the first round by Saunders Bradley, one of Britain’s
biggest hopes for gold at the Olympics.
The other Ghanaian boxers in Beijing, Manyo Plange(flyweight),
Issah Samir (bantamweight) and Prince Octopus Dzanie (featherweight)
were expected to mount the Ghana flag between yesterday and August
15 when they all would have completed their bouts. Dzani fights a
Cuban opponent today in the featherweight division.
The chairman of the Ghana Amateur Boxing Authority, Mr Solomon Offei
Darko, described Bastie Samir’s victory over the tough Nigerian
opponent as motivating enough to inspire the four other boxers to
record equally fantastic wins for Ghana.
He disclosed that beginning with the 2012 Olympiad in London, boxers
would fight over three rounds instead of the current four, noting
that the decision and other measures being contemplated were aimed
at protecting boxers.
He also disclosed that beginning in 2012 boxers would be fighting in
their national colours instead of the current stipulation that they
fight in either blue or red colour.