Kennedy Katende – This Time with Two Fists
Roger Söderberg on a Ugandan-born Swedish Citizen who is Studying i Britain
Tidigare publicerad i Boxing News 8 augusti 2008 

Britain has eight boxers qualified for the Beijing games, but also its share in the unlikely success of Swedish light heavyweight Kennedy Katende.

Kennedy Katende was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1985. But he came to Sweden at eleven and is now a Swedish citizen. Han started boxing in his new hometown Sundsvall, 400 kms north of Stockholm. 

His talent was obvious and he became Swedish junior champion at middleweight in 2002 and 2003. He represented Sweden at the 2003 European junior championships in Poland reaching the quarter-finals.  

As senior boxer has was runner-up to Swedish middleweight champion Badou Jack both in 2005 and 2006. Katende was fast, strong and fit but lacked that extra skill to really threaten his skilful countryman. He would get off balance when he was trying to throw a series of punches.  

On in off he was used in dual-nation matches such when outpointed Welshman Llewllyn Davies in Cardiff in 2006.  

Then Kennedy started studying Sports Management at London Metropolitan school in Holloway Road and also joined the Haringey Boxing Club. He has interrupted his studies the few past few months because of Beijing but expects to return in February 2009.  

Back in Sweden he lost widely (pts) in the 2007 Swedish championships to Naim Terbunja, who´s going to Bejing at middleweight. It was hard to see Katende  Olympic hope,  but  in December he surprised everyone, except himself perhaps, by winning the Tammer-tournament.

At 81 kgs he won three fights in style, including an RSCO 3 against Englishman Obed Mbwakongo in the semi-finals,. 

Moving up  to  light heavyweight, was not obvious, since he is not really very tall fellow at 5 ft 10 (178 cm). But he is really fast now.  

In this new found form it was obvious that Katende was in line for the Olympic qualifiers. In January he attended the multi-nations tournament in Sheffield along  with Swedish, English,  French, and Kazakh  hopefuls. But he broke his right arm when a right hand  landed high on the forehead of Frenchman Abdelkader Bouhenia. 

 Hand injuries are frequent in boxing, but arm fractures…? 

Most  would have given up and  hated their bad luck. But Katende wrote the Swedish abbreviation “OS”, ( Olympic Games IN Swedish)) on his plaster cast. In his mind he was no loser, he was the still going to try. 

He went on with his training as much as he could, except for throwing right hands. Katende is an active Catholic and feels that his belief has been important in helping  him. 

He was able to remove the plaster just in time for the second European qualifier in Athens in April.  He boxed more or less with one arm, his left, he managed to reached the finals which what needed to qualify. He didn´t dare throw right hands with bad intent fearing his arm would not take it. 

Katende had to fight Greek Anastasios Berdenis on his home ground in the deciding semi final, but won 13- 7. You can´t blame Katende for not trying too hard in the final where he was outpointed by Irishman Kenneth Egan.

# Boxing with Haringey has been a great experience for me. It has really given me self-confidence. I have been sparring with pros such as Anthony Small.

# Josepoulo Muhongo has been my personal trainer. He has also been with me for a spell in Sweden during the summer. Chris Hall has also been important when it comes to getting me in really good physical shape. 

I am not sure there are many people who think Katende will reach a medal in Beijing.

But just remember: this time he will fight with both hands!