Nairobi — Kenya's middleweight boxer, Daniel Shisia, narrowly lost to Ghanaian Saraku Ahmed 10-4 on points in the semi-finals of Africa's Olympic Games qualifying tournament in Algiers, on Monday night.

Shisia was, along with the other semi-final losers, due to fight in the third place play-offs last night to pick the bronze medal winners in their respective weight categories.

The finals will be held Thursday with all the finalists having qualified for the Beijing Olympics. They will only be battling for either gold or silver medals. Kenya's All Africa Games light flyweight champion and team captain, Suleiman Bilali, earned his Beijing ticket with a unanimous 33-8 points win over Algerian Boubraoune Mohammed last weekend.

Bilali qualified for the last two Olympics in Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), but was forced to withdraw from the latter after picking up a freak leg injury close to the competition. On Tuesday, Kenya's team manager Francis Makathimo lavished praise on Shisia for putting up a brave fight. "The boy fought extremely well in the opening rounds but relaxed a bit in the fourth and last round which cost him most of the points," the official said on telephone from Algiers.

Makathimo, who is also the second vice-chairman of the Amateur Boxing Association of Kenya, said they will ask for a bigger allocation - of seven or nine boxers - for the second Africa's selection tournament which will be held mid-April in Windhoek.

Bigger team

He urged the Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee to help finance a bigger team to Namibia so that the country could boost its chances of placing many boxers at the Beijing competition.

"We only got four slots for the Algiers competition but the results we have come out with are very encouraging," he argued.

Featherweight David Munyasia, a gold medal winner at the Africa Military Games, and Africa Zone Five under-21 light welterweight title holder, Rayton Okwiri, both lost in the quarter-finals of the championship in Algeria.

At the same time, ABA secretary Charles Gituma has congratulated Bilali for grabbing the Olympic ticket. "We are all proud of his achievement and we now want a big squad for Namibia championship so that more boxers can qualify," the official said.