NAIROBI, April 14 – Pioneering Olympics female boxing heroine, Elizabeth Andiego is in dire need of financial help for scheduled surgery on her legs following a hit and run accident involving a motorbike commonly known as Boda Boda on her way from the gym.
Andiego who is the first and only female Kenyan pugilist to trade blows at the greatest sporting carnival on earth is however, finacially handicapped and does not have enough to cater for the operation to restore one of her legs and mend the fracture on the other.
She is admitted at Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital where she was rushed after suffering horrific injuries when their bike was hit along Mombasa Road on Monday night.
According to her close friend, Laventer Oguta, the mother of one finished her gym session in Nairobi’s CBD when another friend offered her a ride home on his motor bike to Syokimau, at the outskirts of the capital.
“On their way, a cab, from Kenatco I believe hit them. The impact was so hard that the rider’s helmet shattered and he has a fracture in the skull. One of her legs was shattered and the other broken as the taxi took off.
“At the moment, I have left her waiting for an operation since she does not have the finances. All she is talking about is about what will happen to her child because her house is due for rent today (Tuesday). She’s not worried about her legs or the injuries,” Oguta told Capital Sport.
“She represented this country at the Olympics and it’s time for Kenyans to show their appreciation. As you know, boxing does not pay and she has been scrapping for a living, depending on her legs to assist her child,” the distraught friend added.
Andiego competed in the Women’s middleweight competition, but was defeated in the first round.
She grew up in Nairobi’s notorious Eastlands and when she turned up at a boxing training session in the Kenyan capital in 2007, the coach thought she would bail out of a sport still widely seen in the east African country as for men only.
Five years later Andiego got a wild card for the Olympic Games to cap a meteoric rise.
