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.