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| July 8, 2003 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7,1424 |
Disastrous first round for US pugilists
BANGKOK, July 7: The United States were left licking their wounds on Monday after all seven of their boxers in early action at the World Amateur Championships were beaten in the first round.
A former powerhouse in the amateur fight game, the US has slumped embarrassingly in recent major events. They failed to win a gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney for the first time since 1948, and did not lift a title at the 2001 World Amateur Championships.
Four American fighters lost on the opening day and three more, flyweight Ronald Siler, featherweight Jose Perez and superheavyweight George Garcia, were dumped from the event on Monday.
They went down to Bulgarian Alexandar Alexandrov, Oleg Yefymovych of Ukraine and Lithuania’s Jaroslavas Jaksto respectively.
US head coach Frank Gentile was at a loss to explain the early wipe-out but expressed his surprise at the judging in at least one of the bouts.
“We do not seem to have had the luck of the draw or done the right things to impress the judges,” said a glum-faced Gentile.
“I thought Ronald (Siler) had won his bout but the score showed a 10 point defeat. I cannot explain that. The scoring is not what I expected, let me put it like that,” he said.
The disheartened US squad have three boxers still to fight but Gentile was not confident about their chances.
“I would like to have three guys in the finals come Saturday but after what has happened in the last couple of days I am not making any predictions,” he said.
In contrast to the Americans tale of woe, the power-packed Cuban camp have yet to experience a loss.
Cuba, the dominant force at the last championships winning seven of the 12 golds on offer, recorded three victories on day one and three more on Monday.
France’s Jerome Thomas made a stylish start to the defence of the flyweight crown he won at the last championships in Northern Ireland two years ago.
Thomas, who also took bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, looked sharp in his 34-14 points victory over Kaoru Murahashi of Japan.
The Frenchman scored heavily with body blows and was 11 ahead in points at the midway point of the four-round contest.
Somjit Jongjohor, Thailand’s chief hope for home success, made light work of Turkey’s Ramazan Baioglu, stopping him in the second round with the score at 21-1.
The 2002 Asian Games flyweight gold medallist stands to win two million baht (about US$47,500) in incentive bonuses, according to newspaper reports, but is not counting his money yet.—AFP
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