Hit Squad cry foul over "poor officiating" in Olympic Games qualifiers

Kenya national boxing team head coach Benjamin Musa is disappointed with some of the decisions made against his boxers in the ongoing 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers at the Dakar Arena Hall in Dakar, Senegal.

Kenya's Pauline Chege lost her featherweight preliminary bout to home girl Mariatou Diablo of Senegal on split points (4:1) and Peter Abuti of Kenya defeated Hazem Abdellatif Kandil of Egypt on unanimous points (5:0).

"In Pauline's bout, we dominated the first round, but after that, I don't know what happened, but I can say that I didn't like the referee's decisions.

"Even in Boniface Mogunde's fight, we were unsatisfied with the judges."

Despite the setbacks, Musa has trained his focus on inspiring his charges to conquer their remaining match-ups to secure berths in the Olympic Games.

"Now it's all over, and we focus on the upcoming fights as we try to qualify for the Olympics through this first round of the qualifying route." said Musa.

Following his scalp over Kandil, Abuti moves to the quarterfinal stage, where he will meet Gabriel Albino Julio of Mozambique on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.

After a promising start in which he knocked out Africa's middleweight champion Mohammed Rabii of Morocco and Kenya's deputy captain, Boniface Mogunde exited Africa Olympic Qualifiers after losing to Lesotho boxer Michael Pakela in the light middleweight clash.