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By Christopher Oji
The Nigeria Boxing Federation (NBF) in collaboration with the National Sports Commission (NSC) have officially released the list of six officials and 17 boxers scheduled to travel to Canada early 2027 for the Golden Glove Tournament and international training tour.
Very reliable sources at the NBF and NSC headquarters said the 23-member team was invited by the Legacy Boxing Club, Calgary Alberta, Canada to participate in structured training in preparation for the All African Games taking place in Cairo, Egypt from August 27 to September 19, 2027.
The training tour is also to prepare the team for the Olympics Qualifying events leading to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California, United States of America from July 14 to 30, 2028.
The sources added that while in Alberta, the team will participate in sanctioned events hosted by Boxing Alberta, just as members of the team have also been invited by Medicine Hat Boxing Club to compete in the Silver Glove Tournament on January 23 and 24, 2027 at Medicine Hat Lodge and Convention Centre, Medicine Hat, Alberta.
The team had earlier been scheduled to travel in early 2026 to Canada on training tour and tournament in preparation for the Commonwealth Games scheduled to take place in Glasgow Scotland from July 23 to August 2, 2026 but due to some logistics problems, they could not make the trip as scheduled.
The National Head Coach of the boxing team, Gift Otuonye Nsirim (an Olympian) had during the earlier preparation told newsmen that the idea of traveling to Canada for the tournament and training tour was because of the availability of state of the art training equipment in various sports centre in Canada.
She had added that though, Nigeria as a country has good professional and up on boxers the country can be proud of, yet the inadequacy and unavailability of world standard boxing equipment in the country’s sports facilities has continued to pose a huge challenge during international competitions.
“Therefore, it is not out of place for us to take our boxers who are eager to make their mark in the global boxing arena to such a country like Canada that has history of availability of sophisticated boxing equipment” he had remarked.
