OLYMPIC HOPEFUL BARRIGA FACES FORMIDABLE FOE TONIGHT IN PATRICK BARNES
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 02 Oct 2011
Light flyweight Olympic hopeful Mark Anthony Barriga, the littlest man on the Philippine team to the AIBA World Boxing Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan faces a formidable foe in Ireland?s highly fancied Patrick ?Paddy? Barnes in their second round clash tonight.
A victory by Barriga will put him just one win short of a berth in the 2012 London Olympic Games.
But he faces a redoubtable challenge against Barnes who won Ireland's first medal of the 2010 Olympic Games in Guangzhou, China where he was beaten by Zou Shiming 15-0 in the semi finals despite claims that replays showed some of Barnes landed punches counted as points for the hometown favorite Zou.
Barnes had defeated Poland?s Lukasz Maszczyk in the quarter finals 11-5.
The light flyweight was beaten in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Australia by Swaziland?s Simanga Shiba in the quarter finals. In 2007 he suffered an eye injury in the European Union Championships which stopped him from winning a medal.
However, later that year Barnes competed at the Commonwealth Federation Championships and won a gold medal beating India?s Nanao Singh in the finals.
Barnes met Zou Shiming for the first time at the World Boxing Championships in Chicago in 2007 and lost in the quarter finals by a huge 8-22 margin after scoring an impressive 24-6 victory over Japan?s Kenji Ohkubo in the round of 16.
At the 2010 European Amateur Boxing Championships in June, Barnes won the gold medal beating Elvin Mamishazade of Azerbaijan 4-1 in the finals. He also won the gold medal at the Delhi Commonwealth Games last year defeating Namibia's Jafet Uutoni 8-4 in the finals.
Barriga got off to a flying start to the on-going World Championships at the Hayder Aliyev Stadium in Baku, beating fancied Stefan Caslarov of Romania 12-5.
Barriga who is below five feet stuck to his fight plan of throwing quick and accurate combinations against Caslarov who tried his best to frustrate the 18 year old Filipino by his tactics of pushing and shoving which didn?t work.
Delegation head and Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines executive director Ed Picson said that on his way back with his teammates after the fight a beaming Barriga beamed "Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!" paraphrasing the great heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
According to Picson, Barriga said ?he had to punch the other guy harder because "masakit din pala siya sumuntok" (his punches also hurt).?
Caslarov who competed in the 2010 International Youth tournament in Ukraine lost to eventual gold medalist Salman Alizada of Azerbaijan and was also ousted in the second round of the AIBA Youth World Championships.
Barriga who hails from Panabo, Davao del Norte raced to a comfortable 6-2 lead at the end of the first round and pulled away 9-3 in the second before wrapping up his first win 12-5.
Barriga scored a stunning upset over hometown favorite Shahobiddin Zoirov 4-1 to win the gold medal in the Sydney Jackson Memorial tournament in Uzbekistan last May.
In the last AIBA World Youth Championships Barriga lost to Barnes? teammate Ryan Burnett 6-4 in the quarter finals after beating China?s Liang Zhang 7-3, Tanes Ongjunta of Thailand 15-5 and Nikita Fedorchenko of Russia in the round of 16, 3-1.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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