Kariz: From Olympics escapee to Asian champion
“Police hunt for Kenyan Olympic boxers” screamed the headline of a local daily on October 7, 2000.
The two boxers in question were Peter Kariuki Ngumi or Kamadi, as he was popularly known in Nairobi’s Jericho estate, and Fred Munga Kinuthia.
Kariuki, then aged 23, alongside his compatriot Munga, made a disappearing act at the airport when the national boxing team was part of Kenya’s contingent returning home after the Sydney Olympics.
“When the airport speakers blazed for the last time with the names of Kariuki and Munga among the missing passengers, we were heading the opposite side of the flight schedule,” reminisces Kariuki, now 42.
The Kenyan pugilists together with eight others of African origin went AWOL and efforts to trace them proved futile.
It would later emerge that Kariuki, who was raised by her mother in Jericho Estate in the sprawling Eastlands in Nairobi, used his visa to engage a lawyer to grant him Australian residency as he sought greener pastures “after diligently doing duty for my country.’’
“For Munga and I, there was no looking back. We had done our duty to represent the country at the Olympics and in full knowledge of how boxing is mismanaged in Kenya, I personally felt it was time to think outside the box.
Moreover, I had a 10-month old daughter who I needed to provide for,” says Kariuki, now known as Kariz.
In Australia, life was not easy. “After a year, my manager and I did not see eye-to-eye as I stood up for what was right for me and he didn’t like it.
I had to survive as a vagabond as he withdrew my visa and I ended up in the streets of Adelaide,” Kariuki recounts.
“Since we had no papers and a licence to fight, we had to do odd jobs. On many occasions, we slept out in streets armed with only our clothes,” he says.
“In most of these times, I had no contact with my family back home in Kenya.
It was when I relocated to New Zealand on the advice of a boxing official that I finally got regularised with New Zealand and could communicate with my family especially my mum Rose and daughter Tiffany.”
For five years, he lived in New Zealand and participated in several bouts in China where he won the Pan Asia Boxing Association (PABA) title and was ranked eighth by World Boxing Association (WBA).
After the sojourn, he moved back to Australia for bigger fights and was invited to take part in The One Of Iconic Contenders, a television reality with prize money of Sh8 million which he lost by a whisker.
His ranking in Australia increased as he got a personal coach and a well-equipped gymnasium to boot.
In 2011, Kariuki was Australia’s super middleweight champion with his profile growing and the FOX TV Contender Reality FV came calling and he signed up.
The show carried a $100,000 (Sh8 million) cash prize, a Holden SV6 car and a foreign trip.
Karikui, who is estimated to be worth million of shillings, now lives in Cairns, Adelaide with his partner Rachel and daughters Tiffany (20) and Corrina (1).
“I do visit my two boys from a previous relationship, Kimani and Xavier,” he says.
