Ipinge the future of Namibian boxing

• By Michael Uugwanga

NAMIBIA has historically produced elite amateur boxers who went on to win world titles throughout the years, but the country is currently struggling to breed potential world champions.
Gebhard ‘Baruka’ Ipinge is one amateur boxer on the rise and the country’s only hope for medals at significant boxing tournaments such as the All-Africa Games, Olympic Games, and International Boxing Association (IBA) World Boxing Championships.

Born in Walvis Bay 20 years ago, Ipinge began boxing at the tender age of five and is already targeting an Olympic qualification berth at next year’s games in Italy and the All-Africa Games, also slated for early next year.

Even though the All-Africa Games in Accra, Ghana, will not serve as an Olympic qualification for boxers, Iinge is earning a gold medal at the games. Ipinge says he is targeting breaking the country’s Olympic boxing medal hoodoo, which even the country’s greatest fighter of all time, Harry Simon, failed to break.

“I began boxing at the age of five.

My career started when my friends and I used to go to a boxing gym near our house to watch the older guys train, and the coach took us in as junior boxers. My mother was terrified and tried to prevent me from competing in my first fight, but my father was overjoyed that I had become a boxer.

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