Kenya’s stylish middle-weight female boxer Elizabeth Adhiambo, is optimistic about doing well at the seventh International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) Women’s World Championships.

The event, set for Qinhuangdao, China from May 9-20, is also an Olympic qualifier for female pugilists who will be making their debut this year. The London Olympics run from July 27 to August 12.

Adhiambo, who is in residential training at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Likoni, Mombasa with the national team, has good height and makes good use of her left jabs to keep her opponents at bay.

She also combines one-two punches to the head well and has a deadly right hook.

“I expect to do better than I did two years ago in Barbados when we took part in the World Championships for the first time. We arrived late and hardly had time to acclimatise,” said Adhiambo.

“The diet also affected us; I lost five kilogrammes, which made me weak.”

She was eliminated in the preliminary round by a French boxer, Erika Guerrier, who beat her on points 10:5.

She said: “I am feeling great now and at 74kg I do not have weight problems. My only wish is that we leave for China early enough to acclimatise.”

Adhiambo was the sole Kenyan that AIBA picked for an all expenses paid elite boxers’ training in Cardiff, Wales, that ran from February 14 to March 17.

“I enjoyed the training as the gymnasium was well equipped,” said Adhiambo who was the only woman in the middle-weight category at the training camp.

She was introduced to boxing at Nairobi’s Kariobangi Boxing Club, popularly known as Bangla.

The club was founded in 1967 by the late South African-born boxing tactician, Eddy “Papa” Musi. Adhiambo said Dalmas Otieno, one of Musi’s former pugilists, moulded her.

The club churned out several high calibre boxers who won medals for the country in various international events in the 1970s and 1980s.

George Oduori (featherweight) brought the club to the limelight when he lasted three gruelling rounds with Phillip Waruinge, who beat him on points during the 1972 Munich Olympics trials at the Pumwani Social Hall.

The club was a major recruiting ground for institutional boxing clubs like the Kenya Police, Kenya Army, Kenya Breweries Ltd and the Postal Corporation of Kenya.

Musi introduced women’s boxing to the country in the 1990s, but at the time, he faced stiff challenges from Amateur Boxing Association of Kenya officials, who vehemently opposed the idea.

The ABA embraced it when AIBA announced that women boxers will take part in the London Olympics.

In China, the competition will be in 10 weight categories, from flyweight (45 to 48 kg) to super heavyweight ( 81+ kg).

Eight boxers in each of the three weight groups — Light flyweight (48-51kg), light-weight (57 to 60 kg) and light heavyweight (69 to 75 kg) — will book themselves places in the Olympics.

The women’s bouts will be in four rounds of two minutes each, with a minutes’ break between them. Men will box in three rounds of three minutes each.

Other women in the China bound team are flyweight Mary Wambui, bantam-weight (51kg) Ruth Odongo, feather-weight (54kg) Rebah Matanda, light-weight (57kg) Mary Muthoni, light welterweight (60kg) Cecilia Nyaranga and welterweight (64kg) Durry Wanjiku.

As women pugilists prepare for China, their male counterparts have their eyes set on the Africa regional Olympic qualifiers slated for Rabat, Morocco, from April 27 to May 7.

Kenya, like the majority of African countries, has not managed to send any of its boxers to the Olympics.

Algeria is the only country on the continent that has put two of its boys through: Bantamweight Mohammed Amine Ouadohi and light heavyweight Abdelhafid Benchabla.

Ouadohi qualified during last year’s Men’s World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan while Benchabla made it during the World Boxing Series of Individual Championships last May in China.

Kenya failed to take part in the two events as the ABA was deeply divided by leadership squabbles.

The wrangles also affected Kenya’s performance in last year’s 10th All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique, where the country settled for a single bronze medal.

It was Kenya’s worst performance at the All Africa Games and an indication of the declining standards of men’s boxing.