Ghana Para-Boxers And Officials Glad For Exposure And Experience

Para-Boxers who featured on the Ghana Professional Boxing League as a guest show are thrilled and much grateful to Imax Promotions.

President of the Ghana Adaptive Boxing Council, Mr. Collins Zoiku is much glad and thankful to the Ghana Boxing Authority for the collaboration to increase the entertainment package at the Bukom Boxing Arena with classic excitement

Mr. Collins Kofi Zoiku who doubles as President Of GHAMMAF believes there will be professional fighters but in the meantime, “we’ll be doing more of the amateur fights because we don’t have too many athletes yet”

On sanctioning of bouts, including management and administration of the sport he said that is the job of the Ghana Adaptive Boxing Council.

“The organization and sanction s are to be done by the Federation but we are taking advantage of the GBA Professional league to expose Para-Boxing which l think is a beautiful platform for us” he expressed.

Mr. Emmanuel Akpabli, organiser of para athletes said the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Ghana wants to bring joy and happiness to everyone including Footballers, powerlifters and boxers.

What Is Para‐Boxing / Wheelchair Boxing?

Adaptive sports provide a platform for athletes with disabilities to perform at the highest level. Out of this, the idea of Para and, or Wheelchair Boxing was nurtured. Para or Wheelchair boxing is an adaptation of BOXING for the physical challenged athletes. It is not merely for recreation but also added advantage of health benefits, harnessing of experiences through competitions and participations in elite platforms, financial gains through winnings and sponsorships, leading to a more competitive environment and athletes wanting to achieve the highest levels of performance and skills, as defined according to Physiopedia.

The main world governing body is the International Adaptive Boxing Federation (IABF); founded in Canada by Aaron Kinch (Canada), Collins Kofi Zoiku (Ghana), Kanika Chaudhary (India), Joost Van de Lee (Netherlands), Olando Farias Perez (Argentina), Abel Al Rahman Salameh (Jordan) and Ben Griffin (USA).

Para‐Boxing is the world’s fastest growing Parasport with an estimated 2.3 million followers across the globe. It has a modern classification system that recommends pairing of physical challenged athletes on an even playing field seated in special wheelchairs with wide range of wheelchair belts, lap belts, and support straps to enable versatile, abdominal support, and also securing the legs around the thighs or calves for more intense maneuvering in the ring.

The Rules of the game are similar to that of mainstream boxing. The competitors are classified according to the levels of their disabilities and can compete in 6 different weight categories. The system also adopts a point scoring system that measures the number of landed clean blows devoid of causing physical damage to competitors. Bouts consist of three rounds of two minutes in every round, and each with a one‐minute interval between rounds.

As adopted from the main stream AIBA Olympics rules, Competitors wear protective headgear and gloves with a white strip or circle across the knuckle. The white end is just a way to make it easier for judges to score clean hit or punch. A punch is considered a scoring punch only when the boxers connect with the white portion of the gloves. Each punch that lands cleanly on the head or the upper body (preferably, chest area) with sufficient force is awarded a point.

A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows. Referees also ensure that the boxers don’t use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging. If this occurs, the referee separates the opponents and orders them to continue boxing. Repeated holding can result in a boxer being penalized or ultimately disqualified. Referees will stop the bout if a boxer is seriously injured, if one boxer is significantly dominating the other or if the score is severely imbalanced.

By Sammy Heywood Okine