SPORTS SHORTS 190: CARLO PAALAM BRINGS HOME THE SILVER MEDAL BUT FOR THE PHILIPPINES IT SHINES LIKE GOLD
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 07 Aug 2021
Carlo Paalam's Tokyo 2020 Olympics campaign culminated in a silver finish after losing to Galal Yafai of Great Britain via a 4-1 split decision in the boxing men's flyweight final on Saturday at the Kokugikan Arena. Paalam yielded to Yafai, 29-28, 28-29, 29-28, 29-28, 29-28.
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Paalam was tagged in the ropes and hit by a left-right three-punch combination went down the canvas and was given the mandatory standing eight count. The Filipino recovered his senses immediately from the early knockdown, but Yafai continued his nonstop punching to win the favor of all five judges in the first round.
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Paalam managed to connect some shots and returned to his usual methodical style and his skillful footwork in the second round but was not enough to overhaul the lead of the British heading to the final stanza.
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Knowing he was behind in the scorecards, Paalam poured all his energy atop the ring hoping to turn the cards or score a stoppage in the final round as Yafai coasted along to preserve his lead. Paalam received identical scores of 10-9 but was not enough to overhaul Yafai's margin.
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Yafai, born of Yemeni parents, denied Paalam and the Philippines a first Olympic boxing gold medal. The 28-year-old Yafai, a former factory worker, won Britain’s first boxing gold in Tokyo. Britain has now won one gold, two silvers and two bronzes in boxing in the Japanese capital.
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Despite the golden deprivation the 23-year-old Paalam and his family and the whole Philippines are proud of what the poor boy from Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro has accomplished. He smiled cheerfully during the awarding ceremony and gazed at his silver medal whom the Filipino fans considered as a golden performance.
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Only a few predicted he can reach the Olympics and even fewer believed he can bring home a medal, winning against the world’s top flyweight and defending Olympic champion.
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Carlo Paalam was born on July 16, 1998, in Talakag, Bukidnon. He spent part of his childhood in Balingoan, Misamis Oriental. Then Paalam, his father and siblings left for Cagayan de Oro to seek greener pastures.
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Paalam then worked as a garbage scavenger at a sanitary landfill in the city. According to Cebu Daily News, Paalam was just a frail nine-year-old boy when he saw a neighbor putting up boxing gears. He was invited to try boxing when his neighbor told him to spar with his son and the winner would get a bottle of Coke.
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“I was scared because the kid was the son of a boxer and he was good. I didn’t want to spar with him but my neighbor gave me a pair of gloves and he told me that whoever wins gets a bottle of Coke. Of course, I was only a nine-year-old kid so I said I’ll do it. I was gonna get some Coke," he told CDN.
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He added that his neighbor saw that he had guts in boxing even if blood was running down his face. When he train and fight, and whatever prize he received he handed it to his parents. He used the winnings to buy rice for his family.
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Paalam later competed in Cagayan de Oro’s Boxing at the Park which is held every Sunday at the city plaza. These amateur bouts made Paalam stopped scavenging and concentrate on boxing where he could earn P120 in a few minutes of fighting instead of looking for junks for hours.
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The weekly fights later made national team coach Elmer Pamisa to discover the young Paalam and enticed him into the city's boxing training program in 2009. "He was really a dad to me, he really took care of me,” said Paalam.
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Paalam then joined the Philippine national team in 2013 and started competing in the international level. He won bronze medals both at the AIBA Youth Asian and World Championships in 2016, and at the Asian Games in 2018. He fought in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games in Malaysia but failed to bring home a medal.
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Paalam then recouped and harvested gold medals in the ASTANA/President's Cup in Kazakhstan in 2017, the 10th AIBA International Boxing Tournament, and the 1st Thailand International Boxing Tournament in 2018. In 2019, he captured his first Southeast Asian Games gold medal at the Manila SEA Games.
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He reached his debut at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in July 2021 after qualifying through the IOC Boxing Task Force standings “by virtue of their highest standings in their respective weight categories" after the remaining qualifying tournaments were cancelled due to the rising COVID-19 pandemic.
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He pulled a victory by a 4-1 split decision against Irish flyweight boxer Brendan Irvine and advanced to the round of 16. It was his only loss on the judges' scorecard in his four Olympic bouts so far.
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He then won by a unanimous decision of 5-0 against AIBA World Championship in 2013 Almaty, Kazakhstan silver and 2015 Doha, Qatar bronze medalist Mohamed Flissi of Algeria.
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His biggest win so far in the Olympics was a 4-0 decision over heavily favored top seed and 2016 Rio Olympics champion Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan when Paalam won the scorecards during the second round after Zoirov suffered a deep bloody cut. He was declared winner based on four judges and one judge saw it a draw.
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Paalam advanced to the semifinals against Ryomei Tanaka of Japan. Paalam defeated Tanaka by a unanimous decision, 5–0, to advance to the gold medal match against British boxer Galal Yafai.
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The Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) have enjoyed a breakthrough in boxing at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Carlo Paalam brings home the silver medal in the men's flyweight class. Nesthy Petecio won women’s featherweight silver and Eumir Marcial took men’s middleweight bronze.
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The three boxers are still willing to serve the country according to ABAP Secretary General Ed Pecson. Paris 2024 Olympics is just three years off. And the boxing gold medal is not too far away.
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Yuka Saso, the reigning US Women’s Open champion, started round one at 47th place, and finished fourth round tied for ninth place while Bianca Pagdanganan ended at 43rd place in the women’s golf tournament in the Tokyo Olympics at Kasumigaseki Country Club Saturday.
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USA’s Nelly Korda won the gold medal in very spectacular performance throughout the four round women's golf competition. Japan’s Mone Inami grabbed the silver while New Zealand’s Lydia Ko seized for the bronze.
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Hidilyn Diaz has started receiving some of the pledged cash incentives after winning the first Philippine Olympic gold medal. After completing a week's quarantine after arriving from the Tokyo Olympics, she personally received the P3 million check from House Deputy Speaker Mikee Romero on Thursday at Sofitel Manila.
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The cash reward came after business tycoon Manny Pangilinan’s MVP Sports Foundation deposited the promised incentive of P10 million directly to Diaz’s personal account.
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The golden feat ended the Philippines’ 97-year gold-medal search in the world’s grandest quadrennial sports show, and it assured Diaz financial incentives from the government and the private sector to gift her cash bonuses now totaling P52.5 million plus other rewards in kinds.
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The U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team won its fourth straight Olympic gold medal with a fiercely fought 87-82 triumph over France in the gold medal game on Saturday afternoon at Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo.
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Kevin Durant led all scorers with 29 points and six rebounds. Jayson Tatum added 19 points and 7 rebounds. Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard contributed 11 each. Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert led France with 16 points each.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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