Thais beat all opponents in boxing semis
By Johannes K. Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): Thailand's boxing team showed its true mettle in yesterday's semifinals by taking four Indonesian scalps in the process of going the whole day undefeated.
Indonesia, which a day earlier had celebrated all its fighters reaching the semifinals, was forced to accept the bitter truth of defeat as only two of its six fighters competing yesterday won their bouts at the Soemantri Brodjonegoro sports hall in South Jakarta.
The two fighters were pinweight (45 kg) Rusli and national flyweight champion (51 kg) Hermensen Ballo, who respectively beat Laotian boxer Uthen Chantayong 25-4 and Elias Ricardo of the Philippines' 26-6.
The Indonesian losers were featherweight (57 kg) Rico Maspaitella, light welterweight (63.5 kg) Meckson Barataman, light middleweight (71 kg) Aswin Cabui and light heavyweight (81 kg) Syarif Hidayat.
The Phillipines' boxing team performed better than the Indonesian fighters, getting three of its five boxers fielded yesterday into the finals. The three fighters were featherweight Larry Semillano, who defeated Myanmar's Kyaw Min; light middleweight Tizon Junie, who beat Malaysian Rosli Abu Bakar; and light heavyweight Ernesto Coronel who was victorious over Awang Jalani Awang Kifli of Brunei.
Former Indonesian champion Syamsul Harahap, who is now better known as a boxing observer said he was disappointed with the results.
He said the Indonesians lost mainly because they had not gone into their fights with any boxing strategy but had relied on power and aggressiveness.
Syamsul said the four Indonesian fighters who lost yesterday forced themselves to attack throughout the bouts against opponents who applied a hit-and-run strategy.
"The Indonesians should have changed strategy as soon as they found theirs was not effective.
"They kept on attacking and attacking. Where then is the fruit of the three-year training program under their Cuban instructor?" Syamsul said, referring to the Indonesian team's head coach Julio Lee Hechevaria.
Hechevara refused to comment yesterday.
Syamsul said after seeing the performance of all the Indonesian fighters over the past two days, that only two stood a good chance of winning gold medals. They are light flyweight (48 kg) Lapaene Massara and Ballo.
Lapaene faces Filipino Desierto Efren today, the only fighter who has thus beaten a Thai opponent in the current Sea Games.
Ballo performed impressively yesterday in defeating Recaido, a quarterfinalist at the Olympic Games in Atlanta a year ago.