Oshae Jones secured the first medal for the U.S. Olympic Boxing team, outpointing Dominican Republic's Maria Moronta in their quarterfinal bout. Jones floored Moronta in round two en route to winning on four of the five scorecards to guarantee at least a Bronze medal.
Kellie Anne Harrington took a significant step toward bringing lightweight gold back to Ireland. The bracket's number-one seed advanced to the quarterfinal round following a three-round shutout of Italy's Rebecca Nicoli. Scores were 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 in favor of Harrington, who is now one win away from advancing to at least the medal round. Harrington is expected to advance to the final round, if not win it all.
A sibling rivalry of a different kind produced another win for Great Britain and a heartbreaking defeat for the United States. Great Britain's Caroline Dubois advanced to the quarterfinals in the lightweight bracket following a split decision over United States' Rashida Ellis. Two judges scored the bout 28-28 even, overruled by three scores of 29-27 in favor of Dubois in their Round of 16 matchup Friday afternoon at Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo.
Eight bouts in the women's flyweight division take place Thursday afternoon at Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo. All four top seeds appear in the Round of 16, beginning with number-one ranked Buse Naz Cakiroglu (Turkey) versus Tursunoy Rakhimova (Uzbekistan) in the first bout.
Ginny Fuchs' Olympic dream ends on a sour note. The Houston southpaw suffered a repeat loss to Bulgaria's Stoyka Krastva, this time coming in the Round of 16 in the flyweight division at the Tokyo Olympics. Krasteva—a 2012 Olympian who fought under her maiden name Stoyka Petrova—prevailed by scores of 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 Thursday evening at Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo.
Bakhodir Jalolov (Uzbekistan) advanced to the quarterfinal round with relative ease, as the number-one seed at super heavyweight manhandled Mahammad Abdullayev (Azerbaijan) en route to a three-round shutout win. Scores were 30-27 on four scorecards and 30-26 on the fifth card.
Troy Isley's journey from the amatuer to the pros and back to the amateurs ends with a heartbreaking defeat. The Top Rank-signed middleweight from Alexandria, Virginia came up just short in a Round of 16 bout with number-two seed Gleb Bakshi, dropping a disputed split decision. Isley won by scores of 29-28 and 29-28 on two cards, trumped by tallies of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 for Bakshi in a competitive affair Thursday at Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo.
Hosting nation Japan enjoyed success early in the Olympics but has slowly been brought back to reality as the Games have progressed. A reminder of this was found in the Round of 16 middleweight battle that saw number-one seed Oleksandr Khyzhniak (Ukraine) remind the world why he is heavily favored to win Gold, following a three-round wipeout of Yuito Moriwaki (Japan). Khyzhniak swept every round, winning by scores of 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-26 and 30-26.
By Cliff Rold - It’s easy to take things for granted when they happen so regularly. For the United States, Olympic Gold medals were something one could take for granted for a long time. Sometimes, the men’s boxing team would win more. Sometimes less.
Bakhodir Jalolov sent a message to the rest of the super heavyweight field. The hulking 6'7" southpaw from Uzbekistan charged into the quarterfinal round of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics following a one-sided drubbing of Azerbaijan's Mahammad Abdullayev.