This is the thread for all of the Olympic boxing competitions, both men's and women's. Boxing has a lot of local interest for both Britain and Ireland, with both countries confident of medals. Today, John Joe Nevin, the Irish bantamweight, easily beat Dennis Ceylan (Denmark) in the first round. Darren O'Neill, the Irish middleweight, beat Muideen Akanji of Nigeria as well.
Yeah, some good fights tonight too. Another Irish boxer got through, Adam Nolan at welterweight. He's the only one of the Irish lads I hadn't seen fight before. His style is very awkward.
Has it been any good? The lighter divisions early rounds are available for download on a British telly torrent site I use but hesitated a bit as it's a biggish file.
Yes. The standard seems pretty high so far across the two sessions I've seen, although nobody in those two sessions has looked out of this world good either.
All 7 of the British lads are through to the last 16. 4 got bye's (due to their world rankings) and 3 have won theirlast 32 bouts.
Weirdly, not only are all seven British boxers through, so are all five Irish boxers, and every yank who has fought so far is also through. All the Cubans so far have had byes.
You were right, good stuff! See the commentators said they've changed the qualification requirements to make it a bit more stringent which maybe explains the good general standard.
That Cuban lad at flyweight looked pretty special. I don't know how far he'll go this time around, as he's only 18, but he's clearly a big talent. Lovely footwork and great hand speed.
Really looking forward to today's sessions. Ireland's John Joe Nevin, GB's Luke Campbell and Anthony Joshua and 3 of the US boys. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Mexican fella Oscar Valdez Fierro, he'll be on right after Nevin.
Nevin looked excellent again. Joshua against Savon (Jr) should be worth watching, even though the Superheavies are usually best ignored.
The officiating has been terrible this evening. We had the Japanese guy being absolutely robbed, followed by the Cuban getting the softest disqualification win I've ever seen. The judges actually managed to score the last round of the Japanese fighter, Shimizu's, match even apart from his opponents two point deduction! That's a round in which his opponent spent most of the time either on his way to the canvas, kneeling on the canvas or getting up from the canvas. Shameful.
I really hope that wasn't a taste of things to come as far as fights involving British boxers are concerned.
