THE MTC Nestor Sunshine Academy held its first development boxing tournament of the year at the Kuisebmond Town Hall on Saturday.

About 30 boxers participated in the tournament and according to Academy member Immanuel Moses, some exciting new talent came to the fore.

"There were a lot of talented junior boxers and you could see that they are hungry for victory. They just need more tournaments to compete in while we must also try and improve their coaching," he said. Boxers from Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Khomas, NDF and Nampol competed in the tournament.

Moses said the aim of the tournament was to help develop boxing in the regions and to discover and develop new talent. As such, he was not too concerned about the results.

"We selected some young and inexperienced boxers in the Khomas team, so the results were not too important, it was more important that they gain experience," he said.

The NDF team was represented by some of Namibia's top amateur boxers and included Mujandjae Kasuto and Jonas Matheus who both competed at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Swakopmund Boxing Club won six titles, while the NDF team won five and the Khomas team four titles.

The various winners were as follows:

Elikan Mpadhi, Jonas Matheus, Natty Kakololo, Rocky Naruseb and Mujandjae Kasuto (all from NDF), Sacky Jason, Sacky Amutyaja, Gerson Veeta and Erastus Marenga (all from Khomas), Job Ndemulonga, Phillipus David, Junias Koko, Johannes Nicodemus, Raphael Heita and Tobias Shikongo (all from Swakopmund) and Kleopas Alukolo (Walvis Bay).

Sarah Matsi from Walvis Bay won the only women's title on offer.

"The MTC Nestor Sunshine Academy will continue to stage boxing development tournaments throughout the country. Our aim is to keep the boxers active and also to help the coaches improve their skills," the Academy said in a statement.

"We thank MTC for supporting boxing and sport in general and we'd like to call on other companies to also invest in sport and to make Namibia the land of champions," it added.