By Cliff Rold

Friday, Nico Hernandez and Carlos Balderas joined middleweight teammate Charles Conwell at the Olympic off ramp. Their Olympic dream in 2016 is at an end.

Three men’s competitors, and both of the Team USA women, remain alive. The fates turn their attention to flyweight Antonio Vargas, 19, of Kissimmee, Florida, on Saturday. He will face Brazil’s 34-year old Juliao Neto in the round of 32 at 115 lbs.

Vargas has some international chops having won the 2015 Pan-Am Games gold along with a national amateur championship. Neto is an experienced competitor with a quarterfinals appearance at the 2012 Olympics under his belt and a bronze at the 2013 Pan-Am Games. Vargas-Neto goes to scratch at 10:30 AM EST and will be Team USA’s lone appearance of the day.

Until then, a review of Team USA’s Friday results.               

Nico Hernandez

Home with the Bronze: Hernandez, 20, of Wichita, Kansas, joins Harlan Marbley (1968) as an American bronze medalist in the light flyweight division. Heading into Friday’s semi-final against Uzbekistan’s Hasanboy Dusmatov, Hernandez looked to have his hands full. It was the case. The Uzbek was a little too experienced, a little too quick, and a little too much better for Hernandez. Hernandez was shut out on one card and won only the third on two others after falling into a 2-0 hole. Cut under the left eye, he was allowed to continue and finished still looking for a saving bomb.

The disappointment of falling short of gold is sure to sting. It takes nothing away from a quality run. A bronze medal is plenty to be proud of, as is knocking off the #2 seed in the tournament along the way. He will forever be the one who ended the US men’s medal drought in boxing at Rio 2016.  

Coming Next: Hernandez showed some real potential for the professional ranks and should soon be punching for pay. Given his height, it might be realistic to expect to see him somewhere between 112-118 lbs. With Olympic medal pedigree, opportunity will be knocking in no time.

Carlos Balderas

Exiting the Quarterfinals: Some of Olympic success is the luck of the draw. Lightweight Carlos Balderas, 19, of Santa Maria, California, got the toughest draw there was in the round of eight. Cuba’s Lazaro Alvarez is the defending two-time world champion at the weight and was a bronze medalist at the 2012 Olympics.

But what might have been with different scoring in the first…

Balderas came out aggressive and appeared to land the harder shots in higher volume. In a Games that has resembled professional scoring for the first time in ages, Balderas had the right game plan and executed it. The judges disagreed, putting him in a unanimous hole. Alvarez went to work in the second, clearly winning the round. Barring a knockout, the fight was lost. Balderas did his best to chase the feat but Alvarez effectively used his aggression against him. Would a different score in the first have changed Balderas’ approach, and outcome? We’ll never know. That he couldn’t get the job done in the last two rounds suggests perhaps not. Alvarez is the goods.

Balderas did more than enough to give Team USA a fighter to be proud of. 

Coming Next: Like Hernandez, Balderas appears headed for the pro ranks. He should have tremendous upside, fighting in weight classes with higher profit ceilings than his fellow ousted teammate. He showed real skill in the games, switching nicely between orthodox and southpaw stances and showing off polished combination punching. He’s got good size for anywhere between the Jr. lightweight and welterweight divisions depending on how he matures and should be a blue chip signing for whatever promoter gets hold of him.

Mikaela Mayer

Through the Round of Sixteen: Only introduced in 2012, the tradition of Olympic women’s boxing is not long. That doesn’t mean Team USA can’t make their mark quickly. Capturing two medals in 2012, 26-year old Mikaela Mayer of Los Angeles, California, is trying to be our first medalist in the women’s lightweight division.

She got off to a good start, winning all four rounds on two scorecards and three of four on a third. She wasn’t without competition. Micronesia’s Jennifer Chieng, also of Brooklyn, landed some good shots. Outmatched in height, reach, and experience, she gave a valiant effort. Mayer was just that much better. The 2012 bronze medalist at the world championships and a three-time national champion, Mayer showed the class that makes her a serious medal hopeful. On a day when Team USA’s losses finally started to mount after a good start, she was the winning highlight of the day.

Coming Next: Mayer advances to the quarterfinals (Monday, 4 PM EST) where she will face Russia’s 23-year old Anastasiia Beliakova. Like Balderos on Friday, the luck of the draw might not be on her side. Beliakova was the 2014 world champion at light welterweight and the lightweight runner-up in 2016. Mayer will have to be at her very best if she wants to join Nico Hernandez on the medal stand.

Previous Olympic Thoughts

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene and a member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com