SPORTS SHORTS 89: IRISH MAGNO, THE FIRST FILIPINA OLYMPIC QUALIFIER
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 26 Mar 2021
Irish Magno, age 29 years of Janiuay, Iloilo, has represented the Philippines in international amateur competitions including the Asian Games and the World Championships. She has qualified for the Tokyo Summer Olympics, becoming the first female Filipino boxer to qualify for the Olympics.
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In the town plaza in Janiuay, Iloilo she saw amateur boxers training and Irish, that time only 16 years old, was persuaded to join the training. She didn’t tell her parents that she was into boxing.
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The National Open, Youth and Women’s Amateur Boxing Championship was held in Iloilo City that time. She was participating the competition without much preparation. She was eliminated in the first round by her opponent Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Annie Albania.
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Irish was disgusted that she could not even throw a single punch. But she took it as a challenge to concentrate on boxing. She travelled to Manila and got and education through the sport.
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“My mother is just a housekeeper, my father does carpentry. So it was really tough to send us through school, because my older sister was also in college,” she said on the Go Hard Girls podcast. “If I did not try, I might not have been able to go to school.”
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Magno joined the Philippine national boxing team and her first gold medal in an international competition was won at the 2012 Taipei Open in Taiwan. She has also regularly participated in the Southeast Asian Games, representing the Philippines in Naypyidaw, Myanmar in 2013, Singapore in 2015, and Manila in 2019.
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Irish won the silver medal in the women's flyweight division in the 2019 Manila Games and it was her best finish in the Southeast Asian Games. She lost to Vietnam's Nguyễn Thị Tâm in the finals.
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It was her second defeat to the Vietnamese, who defeated her in the Thailand Open International Boxing Tournament 2018. In the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta–Palembang, Indonesia, she was not lucky enough to win a medal.
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She qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics in March 2020 via the Asia/Oceania qualifiers held in Jordan. Magno became the first-ever female boxer representing the Philippines to qualify for the Olympics.
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Magno scored a dominant victory in the Olympic Boxing Qualifiers in Amman, Jordan. She pummelled Sumaiya Qosimova of Tajikistan in a masterful 30-24, 30-24, 30-24, 30-25, 30-25 unanimous decision win in their women's flyweight box-off.
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She was defeated by Mary Kom of India in the semifinals, and she bounced back with a vengeance as she won every round against Qosimova to clinch the Olympic berth with the top 6 flyweights advancing to the Tokyo Games.
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The Olympics was postponed to this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and she had to train virtually with her national coaches in her hometown Janiuay where she also setup a boxing clinic.
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Magno and other Olympic qualifiers Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam left the country on March 10 for a training camp in Thailand. The team flew without Eumir Felix Marcial, who decided to train with Hall of Famer Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles.
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Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) president Ricky Vargas said they are planning to send the squad to the Asian Boxing Confederation tournament on May 21-30 in New Delhi, India as part of the country’s Olympic preparation.
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Considering the changing scenario when it comes to the COVID-19 restrictions in the UK, promoter Eddie Hearn has not ruled out the possibility of Wembley Stadium hosting the heavyweight unification between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
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There was little to no possibility of the first bout to happen in the UK. But that can change if the government relaxes the lockdown measures by June 21.
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"All things being equal, we wouldn’t even be having conversations with anywhere else in the world to be honest with you, we’d just be straight into Wembley. Obviously it is the biggest fight of our generation," Hearn told Talk Sport.
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"It’s the moment of both fighters’ careers. We do have to look at opportunities and with the crowd restrictions, it makes it even more difficult to generate the kind of money in the UK that you need," added Hearn.
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The Houston Rockets traded two-time All-Star Victor Oladipo to the Miami Heat. In return, Houston acquires Avery Bradley, Kelly Olynyk and a 2022 pick swap. Oladipo played 20 games with the Rockets after being traded from the Indiana Pacers. He is averaging 20.8 points, 5 rebounds and 4.7 assists whole season.
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The 30-year-old Bradley has averaged 8.5 points on 42.1% shooting from deep in 10 games this season and can be an asset on defense when healthy. Olynyk averaged 10 points and 6.1 rebounds in 43 games and started 38 times for Miami this season.
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Canadian sailor Lawrence Lemieux raced at the 1988 South Korea Olympics, and he is fully determined to win. But when dangerous winds boew, he noticed a competitor’s capsized boat, and he abandoned the race to help save the two injured sailors.
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After turning over the retrieved competitors to a rescue crew, he continued the race and still defeated 11 of the other competitors, finishing 21st out of 32. He didn’t get the silver medal which he could have easily won based on his pace. But Lemieux was awarded an honorary medal for his heroism.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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