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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter

WOMEN International Boxing Association (WIBA) intercontinental welterweight champion, Monalisa Sibanda, is not only in danger of being stripped of her title but has also lost over US$10 000 preparing for its defence before she failed to travel for the fight.

The 38-year-old first female professional boxer to emerge from this country was scheduled to face-off against Bulgarian challenger, Nikova Kalina, in Denmark, on November 20.

But, after a year of running around, Sibanda couldn’t secure a visa to travel to the European country because her bank account did not have enough insurance funds.

So distraught is the pugilist, she even spent two days locking herself in her Southley Park home thinking, after all the effort, the WIBA would strip her off the biggest belt she has ever won in a professional career that started back in 1996.

She was only able to come out of that confinement after WIBA, for the umpteenth time, extended her grace period up to the end of April 2022 after which she will lose her belt if she fails to secure any opponent.

Apparently, Sibanda has continued training after Tanzania’s Happy “Sniper” Daudi, who she was initially billed to fight before Kalina came knocking, expressed interest to challenge the Zimbabwean.

But, it is the significant amount that Sibanda has lost along the way, when she was putting things in place for the canceled mission in Denmark that has left the Mabvuku-bred boxer a disappointed lot.

“It’s so painful to say the least. Imagine, I have been training for over a year, fasting on some foods and having to buy special dietary requirements as I prepared for the dream fight in Europe,” said Sibanda.

“That would have been my very first fight in that continent and I was raring to go. In my preparation journey, I met comrades and friends who chipped in with material and monetary resources just to ease the process.

“I was ready to conquer the world in Denmark and I was very much excited about that prospect. Given that I was concentrating on the fight only for the past year, I was not doing anything else but I also had to feed my family.

“Then comes the training proper and everything involved. If I calculate everything until this day, I have lost close to US$10 000 preparing for a fight that I wouldn’t eventually fulfill.”

The Danish visa is issued in South Africa, where Sibanda flew twice as she pursued the process.

“I flew twice to South Africa and everything was going on well but along the way when we were doing the countdown to the event, I received a letter saying that my account didn’t have enough funds for me to be allowed entry into Denmark and because of that they said my visa application had not been successful.

“I felt like crying. I spent over a year looking for sponsorship and some individuals chipping in here and there and all I wanted was to go and make my country proud.”

Although she appealed, it was too late for her to travel for the biggest fight in her career.

“I would like to thank WIBA who said we should now look for an African opponent which in this case will be Daudi and I was given a period of up to April 2022 to defend my title.”

Sibanda won the crown when she defeated Kenya’s Joyce Awino in 2019 and she has never been in the ring since then with the Covid-19 pandemic forcing the shelving of her title defence more than twice since April 2020.

For now, the determined boxer continues with her training schedule while licking the wounds of that tremendous loss.