Boxing’s place on the Olympics has been in jeopardy for years now, however the sport has stored its spot for a minimum of yet another cycle, and women and men from around the globe will lace up the gloves and look to convey medals house from Paris, with fights beginning on July 27 and wrapping up on Aug. 10.
The lads’s aspect of the competitors will characteristic seven weight lessons, whereas the ladies increase to 6 divisions for the primary time, having first joined the Olympics with simply three lessons at London 2012.
Males will compete at flyweight (51kg), featherweight (57kg), light-weight (63.5kg), welterweight (71kg), middleweight (80kg), heavyweight (92kg), and tremendous heavyweight (92+kg). Ladies shall be boxing at flyweight (50kg), bantamweight (54kg), featherweight (57kg), light-weight (60kg), welterweight (66kg), and middleweight (75kg).
Staff USA’s boxing roster for the Paris Olympics
Traditionally, the US is an Olympic boxing powerhouse, having received extra medals within the sport than every other nation, and by a major margin. Since 1904, the People have received 117 medals, with Cuba in second place at 78, and Nice Britain in third with 62.
However latest years haven’t been type to the Staff USA boxing program. No male boxer has received a gold medal for the nation since Andre Ward in 2004. In 2008, the People received only one medal, a bronze by Deontay Wilder, and in 2012, the lads received zero medals, with gold for Claressa Shields and bronze for Marlen Esparza on the model new girls’s aspect.
2016 noticed Shields repeat with a second gold, and the lads obtained again on the rostrum with Shakur Stevenson profitable a silver medal and Nico Hernandez a bronze. In Tokyo, Richard Torrez, Keyshawn Davis, and Duke Ragan all received silver, making for probably the most profitable American males’s crew in almost 20 years whereas nonetheless falling in need of a gold, and Oshae Jones received bronze on the ladies’s aspect.
Featherweight Jahmal Harvey is seen because the nation’s finest hope at its first males’s gold medal since Ward in Athens, when the 21-year-old Harvey was nonetheless a bit shy of his second birthday. He received gold on the 2021 World Championships and one other gold on the 2023 Pan American Video games.
Roscoe Hill (flyweight), Omari Jones (welterweight), and Joshua Edwards (tremendous heavyweight) may even compete within the males’s tournaments. Edwards received gold on the Pan American Video games, too, however he’s in a division with an enormous and clear favourite in Uzbekistan’s Bakhodir Jalolov, who received gold in Tokyo.
On the ladies’s aspect, Staff USA sends Jennifer Lozano (flyweight), Alyssa Mendoza (featherweight), Jajaira Gonzalez (light-weight), and Morelle McCane (welterweight).
Names to look at from around the globe
Two Cubans – Arlen Lopez and Julio Cesar La Cruz – will look to affix elite firm as they every chase a 3rd Olympic gold medal, which has solely been completed thrice in Olympic boxing historical past. The Cubans didn’t have their finest exhibiting on the Pan American Video games, however their five-fighter squad remains to be fairly sturdy.
The aforementioned Bakhodir Jalolov of Uzbekistan is again on the Olympics, which does permit these with professional expertise to compete. Jalolov is 14-0 (14 KO) as knowledgeable and dominated the sector in Tokyo a couple of years in the past, which is what is anticipated of him once more in Paris. He has mentioned this could possibly be his last Olympics, even when boxing maintains its place at Los Angeles 2028 and past.
Kazakhstan’s Kamshybek Kunkabayev, who received a bronze in Tokyo, could also be Jalolov’s prime risk, however there may be intriguing potential in Australia’s Teremoana Junior and Nice Britain’s Scrumptious Orie, too.
Two prime amateurs trying to repeat as gold medalists on the ladies’s aspect are Turkey’s Busenaz Sürmeneli and Eire’s Kellie Harrington.
Harrington has been in contrast, for apparent causes, to countrywoman and dwelling legend Katie Taylor, however she did simply endure her first defeat in three years again in April, dropping a choice to Serbia’s Natalia Shadrina.
Sürmeneli was dominant in Tokyo and most count on her to repeat with out a lot bother. She appears to have little interest in turning professional, and if she continues to combat in addition to she has been, count on to see her again on the Olympics in Los Angeles, if boxing remains to be an Olympic sport.
