New Approach to Develop PH Amateur Boxing Needed?
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 16 Mar 2020
The Association of Boxing Alliance in the Philippines or ABAP has managed to advance two of our seven fighters to the forthcoming 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics in the aftermath of the recent Asia Oceania qualifiers in Amman, Jordan.
They are Eumir Felix Marcial who topped the men's middleweight division and Irish Magno who managed to earn a spot by winning in the box off for the last two of the six slots allotted for the zone in the women's featherweight class.
This has equalled the feat achieved in the last Rio Olympics where ABAP also managed to advance two fighters, flyweight Rogen Ladon and lightweight Charly Suarez through the qualifiers.
ABAP hopes to advance Nesthy Petecio, Carlo Paalam and three others of their teammates who fell short in their bids in Amman through the final world qualifiers set in May in Paris, France.
Petecio, the 2019 world championship winner and the 2019 Manila SEA Games gold medalist in the women's featherweight class was the tournament top seed in Jordan. But she faltered losing to Japan's Sena Irie, the same fighter she beat in the semis of last year's worlds, in the Amman zonal quarterfinals, 4-1.
Meanwhile Paalam who also won the SEA Games gold in the men's flyweight, dropped two consecutive heart breaking decisions to Indian ace Amit Panghal in the quarterfinals and to Uzbekistan's Saken Bibossinov in the box off and went home empty handed.
Featherweight Ian Clark Bautista lost to familiar Thai tormentor Chatchai decha Butdee, women's lightweight Riza Pasuit was out of her depth against six time world champion Mary Kom of India and James Palicte had the misfortune of being pitted very early in the tournament to eventual topnotcher Elnur Abdulraimov of Uzbekistan.
How strong was the Amman tournament? Given the presence of such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Asian Games champion Uzbekistan, Iran and Tajikistan, East Asian giants Mongolia, China, India, Japan and South Korea and regional powerhouses Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the Asia Oceania Olympic qualifier was very strong especially in the lower weights up to the middleweight, possibly the light heavyweight classes particularly talking of men's division.
The men's flyweight class was very world class with China's Jinguang Hu, Thai sensational world junior champion Thitisan Panmod, current world number one Amit Panghal and Uzbek world champion Shakhodin Zoirov rather unexpectedly finishing in that order. Panghal was the tournament top seed by virtue of his series of wins over defending Olympic champion Hassan Boy Dusmatov.
Kazakhstan and India advanced the most number of qualifiers with nine boxers each followed by Uzbekistan and China with seven boxers each. Kazakhstan showed particular strength in the men's division by advancing boxers in all of the eight weight classes from the flyweight through the super heavyweight.
India and surprisingly, Chinese Taipei advanced the most number in the women's division with four fighters each followed by China with three and Thailand and South Korea with two each.
Among the Southeast Asian participating countries, Thailand topped with four fighters namely Panmod, Butdee, Soosandee Sudaporn and Baison Manikon, followed by the Philippines with two (Marcial and Magno). Vietnam managed to advance just one, Nguyen Van Durong who upset Butdee in the quarterfinals, forcing Butdee to the boxoff.
Curiously, both Panmod and Manikon were part of the successful Thai junior team and were not in the 2019 Manila SEA Games. Butdee and Sudaporn won the golds in the bantamweight and women's lightweight classes with Sudaporn, the Asian Games and world silver medalist beating Riza Pasuit in the finals.
Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from this approach of Thailand in developing and bringing up fighters from their junior ranks to compete in higher international competitions in support of their more senior teammates.
Given the ever improving quality of competition in the Asia Oceania region, it behooves our boxing authorities and stakeholders to think of or adopt better approaches and strategies in the discovery and development of our boxers for future international tournaments especially the worlds and the Olympics.
Save for Marcial, it is clear that our present crop for internationalists are wanting in size and/or world class skills to compete in the elite level.
Perhaps a paradigm shift is needed starting from our traditional criteria of determining the physical qualities to look for in potential boxers to constitute the national pool.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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