Nervous Navarro wakes up in time to win

Nervous Navarro wakes up in time to win

SYDNEY (AFP): Jose Navarro got a wake-up call halfway through his first Olympic fight and rallied in time here Tuesday to maintain the United States' unbeaten run and pursue a family goal for a gold medal.

The U.S. is 7-0 after almost four days' competition and working towards their anticipated showdown with Cuban boxers in the medal rounds next week.

Flyweight Navarro was level on points with Indonesia's Hermensen Ballo and making little impression before he was urged by his corner to up the tempo and take the fight to his opponent.

Navarro, from the tough South Central precinct of Los Angeles, close to the neighborhood of Olympic gold medalists Oscar de la Hoya and Paul Gonzalez, picked it up to register a 16-10 decision.

Cuban rival Manuel Mantilla Rodriguez set up a second round meeting with Rumanian Bogdan Dobrescu with a 20-8 points verdict over South Korean Kim Tai-kyu.

Elsewhere, Cuban middleweight Juan Hernandez, who had his world championship final loss to Russian Timour Gaidalov reversed last year in Houston after a protest against the judging, breezed past Gabon's Stephane Nzu Mba with the referee stopping the fight 1:32 into the third round.

Navarro's brother Carlos was beaten by eventual bronze medalist Floyd Mayweather at the 1996 Olympic boxing trials, and Jose is looking to bring home a medal to his family of three brothers and eight sisters.

Carlos was in the crowd bellowing support and instructions to his brother, but their father missed the flight from Los Angeles for the fight.

"If I'm going to win that gold medal, it's not going to be only for me, it will be for him as well," said Navarro.

Navarro said he had learned a great deal from Tuesday's fight.

"I picked it up in the third round, I felt a little tense in the beginning, but then I got a little looser during the fight and it helped," he said.

"My coaches told me to pick it up, it was tied up at the end of the second round.

"This is the Olympics, I have no choice take it up or I'm out.

"Fifteen years is no joke. I have been waiting and boxing for that long and how can I let it slip out of my hands after just two rounds?"

Navarro grew up close to the neighborhood of Olympic gold medalists, 1992 lightweight Oscar de la Hoya and 1984 light- flyweight Paul Gonzalez.

"You hear all about those guys in those days, that's what I wanted to be a boxer like Oscar de la Hoya," said Navarro.

"My neighborhood was tougher than theirs, South Central, no doubt about that. It's a ghetto, a little bit rough. It was tough for me to play in my front yard.

"Really, I had no time to do that, because I was in the gym and at school.

Michael Roche, the sole Irish boxer in the tournament, was outclassed by Turkey's Firat Karagollu, who won on points 17-4 in a first round middleweight contest.

France had two victories in the afternoon session. Flyweight Jerome Thomas was too polished for Australian Erle Wiltshire winning 13-1 and middleweight Esther Frederic came from behind to eliminate Russian Andrey Mishin 16-11.

"There was a lot of tension in the training room before the fight. When I came out there was great vocal support for the Australian, but in the fight I was superior," said Thomas, who sparred with Wiltshire before the Games in Noumea.