At 29, Jacinta Umunnakwe made her international debut at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham where she competed in the middleweight category of the boxing event. She bagged a bronze medal for her efforts at the games. In a chat with Sportsafricana.com the mother of one says she still has a lot to offer to her sport. Sportsafricana.com reports.
As an athlete Jacinta Umunnakwe started out with football and athletics. However, along the line she switched to boxing. Since making that switch, it is obvious that Umunnakwe has now settled for a career in the combat sport.
“I did not choose boxing when I started sport. I played football and competed in athletics from my primary school days. I never thought of boxing until when I came to Bayelsa in 2010 and a boxing coach known as Coach Peace invited me to the ring. She told me I had the physique to do boxing and I joined her. After attending the training for two days, I just fell in love with the sport and that was how my romance with boxing started,” Umunnakwe said.
Coach Peace motivated Umunnakwe to continue with the sport: “Coach Peace is the person that really inspired me. She takes me every morning for road work, taught me how to tie bandages, punch bags and do one two, and three four punching techniques. There are four basic punches in boxing – straight jab, right jab, hook, and uppercut. She taught me all these and really inspired me.”
A few months after taking to boxing, Umunnakwe represented Bayelsa at the 2011 National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt and returned home with a silver medal.
Umunnakwe said: “Less than one year after I started boxing, I was selected to represent Bayelsa at the Garden City Games in 2011 and I settled for silver. I also won the same medal at Lagos 2012. Since then I have competed in several local tournaments. In 2018 in Abuja, I claimed the gold medal. In 2019, I gave birth to my baby, and this stopped me from boxing. A few months before the 2021 edition in Benin City I returned to the ring and settled for the bronze medal in Benin City.
“After the Benin City bronze medal, my coach was not too impressed with my performance and we started training again for the national championships in Kaduna where boxers would be selected for the Commonwealth Games. The training prepared me well because we started intensive training twice daily combined with a lot of physical exercises and this really put me in good shape for the tournament. Through this rigorous training, I was able to beat an experienced opponent to clinch the gold medal in Kaduna and made the camp for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“To be honest, God really intervened for me for the Commonwealth Games because He chose me; I didn’t choose myself. I didn’t even know if I could make the team but I saw myself there and to God be the glory He crowned me with a ‘golden’ bronze medal. I cannot say how come but I was victorious in Birmingham,” she added.
However, Umunnakwe stressed that Birmingham was a learning curve for her.
“My experience in the Commonwealth Games was a worthwhile experience because I realised that boxing at the international level is quite different from the local level. How we do boxing at home is slightly different from my observation in Birmingham. I noticed that other boxers were faster and they don’t stand one-on-one. But in Nigeria, we used to stand waiting to punch each other. In Birmingham, most boxers prefer moving around and they don’t like static boxing.”
She added: “However, it was not that tough for me in Birmingham. The only difference is that I learnt a lot of new techniques which I hope to make use of in my next international tournament. I will do more than before because I have learnt and I now know how it goes better than before. We used to look out for knockout but I realised that people used more techniques in the ring which I am going to deploy in my next competitions.”
Despite not winning the top prize in Birmingham, Umunnakwe is satisfied with her bronze medal. “I’m not disappointed at all that I did not win a gold medal. I am very happy from the depth of my soul because there are many champions that could not even get the bronze medal. I’m not disappointed at all, I am happy because I have learnt that next time I will know what to do and how to go about it to get the silver or the gold medal, It is not easy to get there in the first place but I am happy where I got to by settling for the bronze medal.”
However, Umunnakwe blamed Nigerian’s lackluster performance in boxing on late camping which she said affected most of the boxers in Birmingham.
Her words: “Another lesson I took from the games is that hard work pays. If I have not prepared myself earlier than this before now, I don’t think I would get any medal. To be sincere, we did not enter camp early as we started two weeks before the games. The people we fought against have been training for four to six months. I heard them talking about it. What can you do in two weeks for an international games to win a medal? It is better you prepare yourself very well because in Nigeria anything can come up at any time. As if I knew Nigeria was not going to open camp early; as if I knew there was no money anywhere to sponsor us; I just kept training with my coach and the rest of my local people in the gym. We gathered ourselves morning and evening to train. No time for jokes, no time for play, no relaxation, just training. That was what kept us moving.
“The earlier you prepare yourself, the better for you. If they call camp, good, If they don’t, fine; what you have, you have. What God has in plan for you will not depart from you; you will get it except you are not ready. The way you prepare your bed is the way you will lie on it.”
When she started boxing in 2010, Umunnakwe did not envisaged that she would represent Nigeria on a global stage like the Commonwealth Games. Having broken that duck though, Umunnakwe says she is not ready to let go anytime soon. In fact, she now aims at another shot at stardom with the title at the 2023 African Games.
“I think boxing is getting interesting and what we need is support from the government because we cannot continue training without competing. After the Commonwealth Games I had expected we would consolidate on our performance by attending the African championships in Mozambique. Unfortunately, the usual no-money syndrome came up again. We cannot continue like this. The government needs to support boxing. For me, I would not give up. I am looking forward to the 2023 African Games in Ghana,” she said.
Away from boxing, Umunnakwe engages in business, which she said helped to augment her income. However, she vowed to become a champion in her weight category sooner than later and bring more laurels to Nigeria.