Olympic Boxing: The Final Day
Posted by Alan Conceicao on August 25th, 2008
After over 270 fights, boxing at the Olympics finally wrapped up earlier this afternoon. Sadly, NBC showed very limited coverage of the last day’s gold medal matches, which comes as a surprise after such extensive coverage earlier. Still, three of the 6 bouts saw airtime in the US.
48KG:
The old adage is “Its not about whether you win or lose, its how you play the game,” applied in no way whatsoever to the first of the day’s gold medal finals. Any way Chinese favorite Zou Shiming (pictured above) could win was just A-OK. In round one, his Mongolian opponent clearly began to favor his right shoulder and stopped using it, and early in the second round, his corner retired him on the basis of an injury. There were no obvious injuries and he refused a visit with the Chinese medical team, sparking some suspicion, but it is, at this moment, meaningless. China has won gold in boxing.
GOLD: Zou Shiming (CHINA)
SILVER: Purevdorjiin Serdamba (MONGOLIA)
BRONZE: Paddy Barnes (IRELAND), Yampier Hernandez (CUBA)
54KG:
Not televised in the US, Yankiel Leon of Cuba was easily beaten by Mongolia’s Badar-Uugan. This was not a surprise: Badar-Uugan was a silver medalist at the World Championships and was among the favorites here as well.
GOLD: Enkhbatyn Badar-Uugan (MONGOLIA)
SILVER: Yankiel Leon (CUBA)
BRONZE: Bruno Julie (MAURITIUS), Veaceslav Gojan (ROMANIA)
60KG:
Another fight that was off TV, very little has been said about the bout that saw Daouda Sow lose a 11-9 decision Aleksei Tishchenko of Russia. Sow’s camp has apparently been protesting the decision, however.
GOLD: Aleksei Tischenko (RUSSIA)
SILVER: Daouda Sow (FRANCE)
BRONZE: Yordenis Ugas (CUBA), Hrachik Javakhyan (ARMENIA)
69KG:
Oddly, no Chinese fighters meant no US coverage. Bakyht Sarsekbayev won a 18-9 decision over Cuba’s Carlos Banteaux. Its the first time in several years that Cuba came away with no gold medal.
GOLD: Bakyht Sarsekbayev (KAZAKHSTAN)
SILVER: Carlos Banteaux (CUBA)
BRONZE: Kim Jung-Joo (SOUTH KOREA), Hanati Silamu (CHINA)
81KG:
With so much said about the scoring at the Games, it was argurably the worst left for last. Kenneth Egan saw numerous points go against him on highly questionable “scoring blows” that often appeared to strike gloves while, as one might expect, body shots and even solid hooks weren’t scored. Some fault can be passed to Egan for not pursuing the fight earlier on and letting his inactivity in rounds 1 and 2 count against him so much later, but its all a bit too much of a coincidence that this took place against a Chinese opponent.
GOLD: Zhang Xiaoping (CHINA)
SILVER: Kenneth Egan (IRELAND)
BRONZE: Tony Jeffries (GREAT BRITAIN), Yerkebuian Shynyaliev (KAZAKHSTAN)
91+KG:
Zhang Zhilei looked much improved in early bouts, and with an easy run into the gold medal round thanks to a walkover in the Semis, it appeared that Roberto Cammarelle would have competition when it came to getting the gold he so lusted after. That illusion was good and destroyed by the end of the first round, with Zhilei unable to adjust to his fellow southpaw’s style and handspeed. Cammarelle continued to built a large lead until knocking down Zhilei hard early in round 4. The ref had seen enough and Cammarelle finally won a gold medal for Italy, its first at heavyweight in nearly half a century.
GOLD: Roberto Cammarelle (ITALY)
SILVER: Zhang Zhilei (CHINA)
BRONZE: Vyacheslav Glazkov (UKRAINE), DAVID PRICE (GREAT BRITAIN)
August 25th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Why we didn’t get a replay of the knockout, but did see the “flamboyant” Italian coach jumping around in slo-mo, is a question for NBC to answer.
Egan looked a little uncoordinated early on with that lazy jab, but I still thought he did enough to earn a win. He landed pretty well in rounds 3 & 4, and it ended up a pretty good bout overall. The big Dubliner was a good sportsman, too.
Nice to see the “Real Fighting Irish” back on the podium, but it’s sad to see the worst Olympics ever for USA Boxing… especially when there’s just kind of a hopeless feeling there. When the US stank up the joint in basketball, you kind of knew a change was coming… but I think people are just tuning Olympic boxing out at this point, which is even more sad. This should be more fun than it is.