Olympic upsets

Anyone wagering on favourites in Olympic boxing would be the poorer for it today after a string of upsets, some of them quite startling.

Boxers ranked No. 1 in the world have lost without even reaching the medals stage. The judging hasn’t helped, but the inefficiency of the method — five judges attempting to record punches electronically — seems to have been spread out randomly. In short: everyone suffers. The Ghanaian light-heavy Bastie Samir actually beat up his Brazilian opponent but still lost.

I have stuck with the Olympic TV boxing, largely because the professional side of the sport is virtually dormant during the Games. Sitting through some of it has been hard work — one well-known pro manager described it to me as “agony”.

In every session, though, there has been something of interest.

The “styles make fights” adage has never been truer than at the Olympics. You see a boxer and think he has a real chance for a gold medal, then you see him in his next bout and he gets bamboozled by a style he can’t figure out.

Had I been setting odds on the individual bouts, there are boxers I would have made 10-1 on favourites who suffered losses.

Tuscaloosa, AL, heavyweight Deontay Wilder assured America of at least a bronze medal when he outpointed — but only just — a willing Moroccan. This has been the worst-ever Olympics for the U.S., just one man through to the semi-finals and its two world champions going out early.

Cuba has been surprisingly good when one considers that their team was thought to be somewhat untested at the top level internationally. Some of the Cubans have been a delight to watch, such as the baby faced southpaw light-welter Rosniel Iglesias and the compact, pro-style lightweight Yordenis Ugas, while middleweight Emilio Correa is tall, stylish and athletic.

He might not win a medal, but I liked the “black Irishman” — as he calls himself — Darren Sutherland, a middleweight heavy hitter who battered a game Algerian southpaw. Another I liked was Ukrainian Vyacheslav Glazkov, who boxes in the super heavy division. He fights like a professional: pressure, left hooks, body punches, and he bullied the Cuban, Robert Alfonso. But can Glazkov handle the relaxed, southpaw style of Italy’s Roberto Cammarelle, who beat him in last year’s world championships?

Now that most of the weaker boxers have been eliminated, things are getting more interesting and I expect many more surprises.

Here, meanwhile, are my top six Beijing upsets, up to Sunday evening.

1: David Price W referee stops contest 2 Islam Timurziev; super heavyweight division.

Tall, rangy British team captain Price dropped Timurziev with a perfect straight right in the second round, beating his opponent to the punch as the Russian started his own right hand. Timurziev didn’t seem to have been hurt all that badly but he soon went down again, from what looked like a cuffing blow, and this time the referee intervened. A European champion, Timurziev had been one of the gold medal favourites.

2: Jungjoo Kim W 11-9 Demetrius Andrade; welterweight.

Under the old scoring system, when bouts were judged conventionally and not by officials pushing buttons, Andrade would probably have won. The tall, athletic, world champion from Providence, RI, ripped in some lovely body blows from his southpaw style, but Kim fought him hard. The shorter, stockier Korean kept a tight guard and got in some clean shots, but Andrade’s punches were more spectacular. What really hurt Andrade was that his body punches were seldom counted by the judges — but he wasn’t alone there.

3: Dzhakhon Kurbanov W 11-3 Abbos Artoev; light-heavy.

I would have made Artoev a big favourite but the world champion from Uzbekistan couldn’t get going at all against his awkward opponent from Tajikstan, who was described by commentator Teddy Atlas as “like an octopus coming at you”.

4: Zhang Xiaoping W 8-2 Artur Beterbiev; light-heavy.

Once again, styles played a big part in the outcome. Russia’s Beterbiev, European champion and world championships silver medallist, looked the better fighter and landed punches that simply were not getting on the board, but the Chinese underdog did well with a hit, move and clutch style — “effective ugliness” as Teddy Atlas called it.

5: Hosam Abdin W 11-10 Non Boonjumnong; welter.

I would never have expected this result. The world championships silver medallist from Thailand tried to win on strength and pressure but Egypt’s Abdin moved well and let his hands go every so often. I think that under the traditional scoring method the Thai would have won, but this was a close bout and Abdin got through with enough clean hits to impress the button-pushers. I fear that Abdin might have taken a lot of himself with the mental and physical effort of winning this contest, because he looked a bit flat in his next bout when beaten comfortably by Cuba’s Carlos Banteaux.

6: Lee Oksung W 9-8 Rau’shee Warren; flyweight.

It was almost unbelievable to see the U.S. world champion back-pedalling instead of punching in the last half-minute to lose by one point to the Korean. This was amateur boxing’s equivalent of Oscar De La Hoya assuming he was in front and dancing away the last few rounds against Felix Trinidad.

If I can keep on track with the Olympic boxing I hope to do a preview of the semi-finals and finals, and I might even be brave enough to post my own odds, although I have an uncomfortable feeling that anything can happen in the boxing at these Games.