Boxing legend Tinago ailing
BY FANUEL VIRIRI AND MIKE MADYIRA; The Standard Saturday, 05 June 2010 19:07
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/sports/249 ... iling.html
THREE-TIME Commonwealth boxing champion Langton “Schoolboy” Tinago used to float like butterfly and sting like a bee, but today he is a gaunt figure living in a badly-lit two-roomed house in Gweru’s Ascot high density suburb contemplating where from to get his next meal.
The 60-year old boxing legend ushers us into 673 Sixpence Road in Ascot one of the city’s oldest suburbs ridden with crime and prostitution.
Tinago is blown-out and simply unrecognisable and struggles with his walking. The crutches by his side give him away. We take our seats on the tattered sofas.
The boxing great has fallen on the hard times. The ailing former pugilist has sight and leg problems, forcing him to use crutches to walk and is finding it hard to foot his medical bills.
It is a pity to hear the former boxer boasting about his “few head of cattle in Nhema (Shurugwi, his home area) and this two-roomed house” as his only prized possessions. But these possessions do not put food on the table.
He struggles to fend for the three children that he is living with out of his brood of seven. The other siblings migrated to South Africa and occasionally send a few rand by bus.
Tinago lost his job as tractor driver with Gweru City Council on medical grounds after serving the municipality for 19 years. He was also a boxing instructor at council-run Mtapa Hall where he honed his skills, but he is no longer able to go to the hall because of his problematic legs.
His sight has gone very bad; he no longer wears his trademark thick glasses as he did in the late 1990s.
Distressed with his situation we forgot to ask him what had happened to his spectacles now that he was almost blind?
During the two-hour interview he narrated how he is also a victim of the economic downturn which forced him to sell one of his houses in another suburb in Gweru called Shamrock Park in order to survive.
Now he has literally nothing to sell. The two-roomed dwelling is furnished only with tattered sofas and an old kitchen unit with a television set and a free-to-air decoder on top. The other room, we assumed, was his bedroom.
On the wall with paint peeling off is a black and white photograph of a super fit Tinago, which he claims was taken in Cape Town many years back. The photograph mirrors how the mighty have fallen.
“I think I deserve to be treated better. Boxing authorities are doing nothing to help my condition, which is worsening by the day. I did the country proud by winning the Commonwealth boxing titles three times, something that no one has ever achieved and this is how I am treated,” decried Tinago.
“Since the boxing board visited me two years ago (when he fell ill) and gave me cash, nothing of any kind has come my way, that was it. In fact, when they came it was because of shame from the noise made by (Mordecai) Donga and (Farai) Musiiwa that they were ignoring my plight. They promised to continuously check on me but it seems they are gone for good. I am being helped by my children to survive and things are not that good, I am struggling.
“I understand the Commonwealth Boxing Council should cater for their former title holders after they retire but they are not doing anything for me,” Tinago said.
The only time Tinago got help from the boxing family was two years ago, when Zimbabwe Amateur Boxing and Wrestling Board (ZNBWCB) and boxing promoters Stanley Mau Mau, Boris Zneider and the Commonwealth Boxing Council presented him with some cash and promised to return but never came back.
From then on, the world seems to have turned a total blind eye on the internationally acclaimed former boxer, who had his name in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only boxer to win a Commonwealth title three times.
He retired from the ring in 1987 after 106 professional fights with a record of 82 wins and 20 defeats.
He won his first Commonwealth title in 1980 after a convincing fifth round flooring of the much-hyped Hogani Jimoh in his home ring in Lagos, Nigeria. He took us down memory lane.
“I will never forget fighting against Jimoh. I was tipped to lose that fight in Nigeria because he had gone undefeated in 33 bouts, of those 32 being knock-out wins and having won the other on points. The treatment I was given in Lagos was awful but it did not dampen my spirit in any way.
“When I knocked him out, there were riots and I had to be escorted by the army out of the ring, two hours after the match. I went back to my hotel room with blood all over my face and from there straight to the airport where a plane was delayed for three hours waiting for me. I cleaned myself and took off my boxing trunks while on that plane. I can’t believe that it all happened,” said Tinago filled with nostalgia.
Langton “Schoolboy” Tinago ailing
Re: Langton “Schoolboy” Tinago ailing
This is desperately sad. Tinago was a good fighter, lean and dangerous.Blue wrote:Boxing legend Tinago ailing
BY FANUEL VIRIRI AND MIKE MADYIRA; The Standard Saturday, 05 June 2010 19:07
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/sports/249 ... iling.html
THREE-TIME Commonwealth boxing champion Langton “Schoolboy” Tinago used to float like butterfly and sting like a bee, but today he is a gaunt figure living in a badly-lit two-roomed house in Gweru’s Ascot high density suburb contemplating where from to get his next meal.
The 60-year old boxing legend ushers us into 673 Sixpence Road in Ascot one of the city’s oldest suburbs ridden with crime and prostitution.
Tinago is blown-out and simply unrecognisable and struggles with his walking. The crutches by his side give him away. We take our seats on the tattered sofas.
The boxing great has fallen on the hard times. The ailing former pugilist has sight and leg problems, forcing him to use crutches to walk and is finding it hard to foot his medical bills.
It is a pity to hear the former boxer boasting about his “few head of cattle in Nhema (Shurugwi, his home area) and this two-roomed house” as his only prized possessions. But these possessions do not put food on the table.
He struggles to fend for the three children that he is living with out of his brood of seven. The other siblings migrated to South Africa and occasionally send a few rand by bus.
Tinago lost his job as tractor driver with Gweru City Council on medical grounds after serving the municipality for 19 years. He was also a boxing instructor at council-run Mtapa Hall where he honed his skills, but he is no longer able to go to the hall because of his problematic legs.
His sight has gone very bad; he no longer wears his trademark thick glasses as he did in the late 1990s.
Distressed with his situation we forgot to ask him what had happened to his spectacles now that he was almost blind?
During the two-hour interview he narrated how he is also a victim of the economic downturn which forced him to sell one of his houses in another suburb in Gweru called Shamrock Park in order to survive.
Now he has literally nothing to sell. The two-roomed dwelling is furnished only with tattered sofas and an old kitchen unit with a television set and a free-to-air decoder on top. The other room, we assumed, was his bedroom.
On the wall with paint peeling off is a black and white photograph of a super fit Tinago, which he claims was taken in Cape Town many years back. The photograph mirrors how the mighty have fallen.
“I think I deserve to be treated better. Boxing authorities are doing nothing to help my condition, which is worsening by the day. I did the country proud by winning the Commonwealth boxing titles three times, something that no one has ever achieved and this is how I am treated,” decried Tinago.
“Since the boxing board visited me two years ago (when he fell ill) and gave me cash, nothing of any kind has come my way, that was it. In fact, when they came it was because of shame from the noise made by (Mordecai) Donga and (Farai) Musiiwa that they were ignoring my plight. They promised to continuously check on me but it seems they are gone for good. I am being helped by my children to survive and things are not that good, I am struggling.
“I understand the Commonwealth Boxing Council should cater for their former title holders after they retire but they are not doing anything for me,” Tinago said.
The only time Tinago got help from the boxing family was two years ago, when Zimbabwe Amateur Boxing and Wrestling Board (ZNBWCB) and boxing promoters Stanley Mau Mau, Boris Zneider and the Commonwealth Boxing Council presented him with some cash and promised to return but never came back.
From then on, the world seems to have turned a total blind eye on the internationally acclaimed former boxer, who had his name in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only boxer to win a Commonwealth title three times.
He retired from the ring in 1987 after 106 professional fights with a record of 82 wins and 20 defeats.
He won his first Commonwealth title in 1980 after a convincing fifth round flooring of the much-hyped Hogani Jimoh in his home ring in Lagos, Nigeria. He took us down memory lane.
“I will never forget fighting against Jimoh. I was tipped to lose that fight in Nigeria because he had gone undefeated in 33 bouts, of those 32 being knock-out wins and having won the other on points. The treatment I was given in Lagos was awful but it did not dampen my spirit in any way.
“When I knocked him out, there were riots and I had to be escorted by the army out of the ring, two hours after the match. I went back to my hotel room with blood all over my face and from there straight to the airport where a plane was delayed for three hours waiting for me. I cleaned myself and took off my boxing trunks while on that plane. I can’t believe that it all happened,” said Tinago filled with nostalgia.