{"id":503451,"date":"2026-02-27T17:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503451\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T17:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:06:14","slug":"ex-olympic-champion-switches-nationality-to-dr-congo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503451\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Olympic champion switches nationality to DR Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/SportsArchive\/Ex-Olympic-champion-switches-nationality-to-DR-Congo-2023217?gallery=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/70546607.295.jpg\" alt=\"Former Olympic champion Tony Yoka\" title=\"Former Olympic champion Tony Yoka\" width=\"295\" height=\"197\" \/> <\/a>Former Olympic champion Tony Yoka<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\">Tony Yoka won Olympic boxing super heavyweight gold for France in 2016 and says he is aiming for a second title at the 2028 Los Angeles Games but this time for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country of his father\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n<p>The Paris-born 33-year-old, who would have to put his professional career on hold if he were to box in Los Angeles, went to the DRC a few days ago before posting on X his ambition to represent the country in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am proud to shine a light on the Democratic Republic of Congo in the eyes of the world,\u201d he wrote late on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlso to be able to honour my word and pay homage to the minister (for Sport in the DRC) Didier Budimbu who has instilled confidence in me for this adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yoka, who has a professional record of 15 victories and three defeats, shared a post by Budimbu, who said the boxer is \u201ctargeting Olympic gold for the DRC\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Budimbu added Yoka will \u201ccarry the Congolese flag into the ring with a national license\u201d and \u201ctrain tomorrow\u2019s elite in a dedicated academy\u201d as well as promote the country\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n<p>Yoka, who met DRC president Felix Tshisekedi according to photographs published by Budimbu, is on a run of four successive victories and is slated to next fight in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Olympic champion Tony Yoka Tony Yoka won Olympic boxing super heavyweight gold for France in 2016 and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-503451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}