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Ten years after gifted Jolly Katongole faded in controversy
President Museveni meets the 2004 Olympic team to Athens. PHOTO/EDDIE CHICCO
What you need to know:
Katongole went through many hands, but Hamza Sempewo, now in USA, his sister’s boyfriend in the late ‘90s, knew him a little earlier.
There was a time when a teenage boxer was Uganda’s best. Some called him ‘Warrior’, some ‘Light Fly’. But both tags truly fitted Jolly Katongole’s status, Uganda’s youngest ever boxer at the Olympics. Sadly, he died 10 years ago.
Katongole went through many hands, but Hamza Sempewo, now in USA, his sister’s boyfriend in the late ‘90s, knew him a little earlier.
When he took the little boy to training sessions at Kololo Boxing Club, everyone was amazed.
John Munduga, the club’s head coach, instantly liked the boy who reminded him of the great Ayub Kalule. “He was about 11 years but exuded a natural talent,” Munduga told me in 2015. “He was a fearless fighter.”
Munduga predicted: “You see this boy? Soon, he will be boxing at the Olympics,” a prophecy that came to pass in 2004 when Katongole boxed at the Athens Olympics.
In 2003, Katongole won the National Juniors, Novices and Intermediates. At the National Open finals, he defeated Migadde, taunted as old enough to be his father.
He joined the Bombers at just 16. “I was seeing a young man stopping opponents at Lugogo in fantastic style,” said former national coach Dick Katende, who died a year after Katongole.
The rising star got bronze at the 2003 All-Africa Games in Abuja, Nigeria, and better things followed.
What Uganda missed
Before Ronald Serugo became the heir apparent to Katongole’s throne, he always admired the gifted light flyweight.
“When Jolly had returned from the Athens Olympics, a mutual friend introduced me to him as an upcoming light fly. I said hey and told him how I liked his fighting style,” recalls Serugo who would later represent Uganda at the 2008 and 2016 Olympics.
“I always imitated his style. And I would feel so good when I perfected a technique that resembled his style.
“In terms of accomplishments, I guess I came close to him,” Serugo, 2011 All-Africa Games bronze medalist and two-time Olympian told us in 2020. “But no light fly comes close to that. None of us ever matched his unique style.”
Serugo explains: “His quick maneuver from one fighting range to another and hitting the opponent without them noticing was his masterstroke. Not many boxers do that.”
Katongole was also a good counter puncher, “who could unleash lethal combinations under siege, dancing away from the opponent without being touched,” according to Serugo.
Love and weaknesses
Vicky Byarugaba was the boxing federation head and team manager at the Athens Olympics. He recalls Katongole as “a determined young man, who never gave up a fight.”
“He loved boxing and took instructions…But outside the ring, he was erratic, and had mood swings,” Byarugaba told us in 2020.
After attending several primary schools in Namulonge, near his mother’s home in Kanyanya on Gayaza Road and Mutungo, in suburban Kampala, Katongole joined Kampala Citizens’ High School on Namirembe Road on a bursary. But Brian Mayanja, a former schoolmate, says he only studied Mathematics and English.
“Jolly’s real classroom was the training ground,” Mayanja recalls. “By 3pm, he could pick his books and go for training. And no one ever complained about his work ethic. Boxing was his life.”
However, “His only weakness was alcohol. Whenever he was drunk he could pick a fight with anyone.” Such fights would define his final days. His wounds resulted in tetanus which killed him at Mulago Hospital on May 14, 2015.
Road to Athens
At the 1st Aiba African 2004 Olympics Qualifiers in Casablanca, Morocco, Katongole was fantastic. But he nearly lost the final, against 28-year old Redouane Bouchtouk. He was trailing by six points in the second round. “I yelled at him ‘Jolly fanya style yetu’,” Coach Katende told us, meaning, fight our usual style. This provoked the warrior in him and launched a non-stop assault on the Moroccan, outscoring him before his home crowds. Katongole’s Olympic dream had come true at just 18 years.
Featherweight Mayanja and middleweight Joseph Lubega also got the tickets to Athens 2004 despite losing their finals.
After the second qualifiers in Botswana, Sam Rukundo, another of Katongole’s mentors, and Sadat Tebazalwa joined the trip to Athens. But at the Games, only Rukundo reached the quarterfinals.
“We expected a better performance,” Byarugaba says. “But it didn’t happen.”
After losing to Atagün Yalçınkaya, Katongole went missing. He would be deported later.
Byarugaba thinks his mind was not in the ring. “He was preoccupied with his next move.”
But Mayanja disagrees, “He tried but his opponent was just taller.”
I never bewitched Warrior
At 16, Sharif Bogere was the youngest of the Bombers at the 2005 Africa Zone V Championships in Nairobi, where Katongole won his last medal—a gold.
The Nevada-based professional recalls: “Jolly was a very young talented boxer who loved the sport and a young father who loved his child.”
But his son, a replica of his father, was a child of controversy that at one point, I was told, Katongole wanted to kill him to regain his freedom.
The mother to Katongole’s son was Mayanja’s girlfriend and some allege that Mayanja bewitched Katongole but the former strongly denies: “Yes, he took my wife but we talked over it and I moved on,” Mayanja says. “She wasn’t the only woman I had. We were celebrities…but I swear upon my mother’s grave I never bewitched Warrior.”
Intoxicated in drugs and booze, Katongole lost control of his senses and became a nuisance, a beggar, a shadow of his glorious past.
But what if?
When tragedy hampers progress, we always ask ourselves the hypothetical question: ‘What if it hadn’t happened?’ Judging from him personal ordeal, Mayanja cannot exactly predict how far Katongole would have gone had he not thrown his life to the dogs.
After being deported from Greece, Katongole, Mayanja, and Tebazaalwa were selected for a tournament in Sweden. But only Mayanja travelled, and joined other Ugandans, whose boxing careers ‘died’ in Sweden.
“We settled in non-boxing countries and our careers failed yet we were teenage fathers. We looked for means of supporting our young families back home.”
Byarugaba admits that with the lack of rehabilitation services like counselling in Uganda’s sports structures, Katongole could not be rescued from the demons that haunted him to the grave. He died at 29.
“I just do not know what went wrong,” Munduga, his first coach said. “Maybe he lacked guidance.”
BRIEFLY
Nicknames: Warrior, Light Fly
Born: December 15, 1985
Died: May 14, 2015 (aged 29)
Former clubs: Kololo BC, Lukanga
Weight: Light Fly (48kgs)
National team debut: 2003
Honours: Bronze at 2003 All-Africa Games
Gold at the 2004 African Olympics Qualifiers
Gold at the 2005 Africa Zone V
Olympics debut: Athens 2004
