Wild Cards Reign Supreme in Olympic Boxing Lowest Weight
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 04 Aug 2021
Paalam (L) and Tanaka.
Olympic boxing is living up to its billing as the best meeting the best with pre-tournament seedings do not matter much as two giant killing flyweights from Asia head the semi-finals cast in the sport's lowest weight class made up mostly of wild cards.
Carlo Paalam of the Philippines registered the tournament's biggest upset Tuesday by ousting defending Olympic and world champion Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan via technical 4-0 decision in their injury-shortened quarterfinals bout after less than two rounds to advance to the semifinals Thursday.
Paalam will meet in the semis Japan's Ryomei Tanaka who narrowly defeated Yuberjen Martinez of Colombia, silver medalist in the 2016 Rio Olympics at the now defunct light flyweight who had earlier eliminated one of the tournament's top seeds Amit Panghal of India.
The Filipino qualified in the event after organizers resorted to ranking in lieu of the scrapped final pre Olympics qualifiers supposedly set in Paris. He lost to Sakken Bobissinov of Kazakhstan in the box off for the last slot in the Asia Oceania qualifiers held early this year in Jordan.
Before shocking Zoirov, Paalam had defeated veteran Olympian Brendan Irvine of Ireland and Mohammed Flissi of Algeria in the earlier rounds.
His semis foe, Tanaka, qualified as a semifinal loser in a qualifier held in Russia last year. Tanaka though has been under close scrutiny of international sports press in Tokyo after figuring in two straight close contests and wins, first versus Rio bronze medalist and Asia Oceania top qualifier Hu Jianguan of China whom he beat 3-1 in the Round of 16 and then Martinez in the quarterfinals.
Fighting in the other semifinals are Bobissinov and Galal Yafai of the UK.
Bobissinov had advanced with wins over Yankiel Rivera of Puerto Rico, Billal Bennema of France and Gabriel Escobar of Spain in the earlier rounds.
Yafai, younger brother of former world super flyweight champion Khalid Yafai and top qualifier from Europe, on the other hand, reached the semis after RSC win over Koryun Soghomanyan of Armenia, points win over Patrick Chinyemba of Zambia and world number two Yosbany Veitiya of Cuba.
Earlier in the first Olympic boxing finals at women's featherweight, the host's Sena Irie defeated the Philippines' Nesthy Petecio for the gold medal, drawing some criticism from the Philippine as well as some foreign press.
Paalam will be figuring in another Philippines versus Japan fight in the medal round and the International press will surely be watching closely.
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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