Sports
Related: About this forumThe US has had a medal winner in every Olympics going back to the first in 1908, until now.
LONDON -- The Olympic boxing venue, almost every session, is packed. Many come to see British middleweight Anthony Ogogo, while others come to discern whether Kazakhstan's 6-foot-9 super heavyweight, Ivan Dychko, has game equal to his size. Increasingly the draw is Katie Taylor, the Irish middleweight who treats opponents' heads like a speed bag.
What they're not coming to the boxing venue to see is American men, because there are none. OK, going into Tuesday night one U.S. male fighter remained, welterweight Errol Spence, who needed his loss overturned in the previous round to even get this far (he ended up losing to Russia's Andrey Zamkovoy in the quarterfinals, anyway). But what's been a slow death over the past 20 years for U.S. Olympic boxing could result in expiration here in London. The U.S. has had a medal winner in every Olympics going back to the inaugural boxing competition in 1904
until now.
The U.s boxing program that produced 108 medalists, 48 of them gold, is now a dysfunctional embarrassment. The program that once gave the world, among others, Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ray Leonard, Leon and Michael Spinks, Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker, Oscar De La Hoya, Riddick Bowe and Floyd Mayweather has now produced one gold medal in the past three Olympic competitions and one medal at the most recent world championship.
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Instead, in what amounts to the same old story going back to 1984, USA Boxing officials gave a stiff-arm to proven trainers like Roach and locked out the boxers' individual trainers to make the Olympians work with only the Olympic coach, Basheer Abdullah. USA Boxing folk accuse pros like Roach of using this as a recruiting opportunity to sign the kids to pro contracts. The professional trainers point to the dwindling number of prospects and say, "Recruit who? For what?" In the case of this team, people close to the situation said that Roach suggested they all work together for the benefit of the fighters, but USA Boxing rejected that.
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http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/boxing/story/_/id/8244927/2012-olympics-us-boxing-continues-fall
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)We're usually good in boxing...why has it gone downhill?
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)to downfall.
RockaFowler
(7,429 posts)First time since 1920 that we didn't even medal (excluding the 1980 Olympics)
http://aol.sportingnews.com/olympics/story/2012-08-06/olympics-2012-mens-400-meters-usa-falters-lashawn-merritt-kirani-james
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)That is odd about that is because Kirani James won Grenada's first medal in any event ever at that race.
BTW - James is full of a class.
RockaFowler
(7,429 posts)Also I love Felix Sanchez's story.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/track-and-field/highlights-mens-400m-hurdles-medal-ceremony.html
ikri
(1,127 posts)But, is this due to Olympic boxing being strictly amateur?
After Amir Khan won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics he had promoters desperate to sign him on as a professional. He was offered enough money that he was persuaded to reject a £280,000 sponsorship package from the Amateur Boxing Association and turned professional.
Obviously he was an Olympic medalist with a huge media profile at that point so he could probably expect a bigger financial deal than most but if a young boxer is offered a relatively minor deal to turn professional early instead of staying as an amateur it wouldn't be that much of a surprise, considering the current economic climate, to see a lot turning pro and losing their chance to compete.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)See the white spots on the front of the boxer's gloves? That's for scoring. Every punch you land with the white part of the glove counts for one point, whether it's a pitty-pat jab or it knocks your opponent into the ropes. This tends to penalize American (and to some extent, Cuban) fighters who punch for power, because it's awfully tough to score a knockout in a three-round fight.
Ironically, the rule change came about because of the controversy over Roy Jones, Jr. getting ripped off by partisan judging.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,158 posts)eg:
Whether this is related to any rule change, I don't know.
Kingofalldems
(38,361 posts)DinahMoeHum
(21,737 posts)Marlen Esparza won a bronze in the flyweight today; and Clarissa Shields is in the gold medal bout for middleweight tomorrow night (August 9)
http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/boxing/shields-advances-to-gold-medal-final.html
rocktivity
(44,555 posts)And anyone who's dating them had better think very hard about dumping them!
rocktivity
DinahMoeHum
(21,737 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 02:38 PM - Edit history (1)
would be found the next morning in a garbage can.