Abubakar “Ambitious Tilapia” Kamoko, son of retired Ghanaian boxer Bukom Banku, opened up about the difficulties he encountered leading up to the final match at the recent 13th African Games held in Accra.
Despite promising a gold medal performance, Kamoko settled for silver following a unanimous decision loss to Algeria’s Kanouni Ousamma.
He admitted that health issues affected his performance, revealing that he struggled to recover after the semi-finals: “I wasn’t in a good condition; I wasn’t feeling well at all… After the semifinal game, I couldn’t even get up from the bed. It took the motivation of my coach to get me to train again.”
Despite falling short of his gold medal goal, Kamoko expressed pride in surpassing his father’s achievement – a bronze medal finish at the African Games in 1999.
Grateful for making it to the medal round, he acknowledged, “To be in the medal zone is not easy,” adding “I feel proud because my father took bronze and I wanted to do more than my father so if I took bronze to the house it wouldn’t have been good.”
With the African Games behind him, Kamoko aims to qualify for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympic Games.