Philippines and Thailand closer to gold
Philippines and Thailand closer to gold
ATLANTA, Georgia (Agencies): The Philippines and Thailand
moved a step closer to historic Olympic gold boxing medals with
quarterfinal victories at the Atlanta tournament on Tuesday.
But their fellow Southeast Asian country, Indonesia, failed to
follow in their footsteps when Lapaene Masara was beaten by a
blow in the dying seconds in his light flyweight bout against
Rafael Lozano of Spain.
Lozano, whose previous fame rested mainly on a controversial
points win over U.S. world champion Eric Griffin in one of the
early rounds of the 1992 Barcelona Games, threw a winning punch
in the last five seconds to outpoint Lapaene 10-9.
The two men were level 3-3 after the first round and 6-6 after
the second. The score was 9-9 with a minute to go and stayed that
way until Lozano pulled out the winner.
Lozano will fight the Philippines' Mansueto Velasco who is
bidding for his country's Olympic boxing title after a
comfortable 20-10 points victory over Moroccan Hamid Berhili in
another light flyweight duel.
Bantamweight Khadpo Vichairachanon is close to fulfilling a
mission for Thailand's first Olympic gold with an emphatic 13-4
verdict over Moroccan Hicham Nafil.
While the Asians guaranteed themselves of at least a bronze
medal in Atlanta, Caribbean powerhouses Cuba qualified all their
four boxers into semifinals bouts in Tuesday's two sessions.
Charismatic heavyweight Felix Savon, the five-time world
champion and bidding for his second Olympic gold, and Olympic and
world middleweight champion Ariel Hernandez posted expected
points victories.
Savon terrorized Georgia's Giorgi Kandelaki with his fearsome
right hand on the way to a 20-4 points verdict, while Hernandez
did enough to weather rugged Russian Alexander Lebziak, 15-8.
Earlier, Arnaldo Mesa, who was scheduled to fight in the
featherweight class but moved down one class to fill in for
Olympic defector Joel Casamayor, saw off stalking Frenchman
Rachid Bouaita, 15-8 in the bantamweight division.
Cuba's world champion and Olympic silver medalist Juan
Hernandez outpointed Nurzhan Smanov of Kazakhstan 16-8 to also
advance to the medal round in the welterweight division.
The Philippines have earned four medals in the Olympics -
Mansueto's brother, Roel, was a bronze medalist behind Cuban
Marcelo Rogelio at the last Barcelona Olympics.
The best Filipino boxer at an Olympics has been featherweight
Anthony Villaneuva, a silver medalist at Tokyo in 1964.