Ukraine’s Oleksandr Khyzhniak sent twice Olympic champion Arlen Lopez Cardona out of the Paris Games yesterday, while home fans at North Paris Arena had much to cheer for as French duo Sofiane Oumiha and Billal Bennama claimed wins in their semi-finals.
Lopez Cardona, middleweight champion at the 2016 Rio Games and light heavyweight champion in Tokyo, struggled to keep up with Tokyo silver medallist Khyzniak’s pace and power in their light heavyweight bout.
Earlier yesterday, European Games champion Bennama beat Yunior Alcantara of the Dominican Republic by unanimous decision, before Rio Olympics silver medallist Oumiha clinched a hard-fought 4-1 win over Canada’s Wyatt Sanford in the very next bout.
France were looking for a hat-trick of wins with women’s middleweight Davina Michel in action, but Cindy Ngamba won the quarter-final match by a unanimous decision to dash those hopes and ensure a first-ever medal for the refugee Olympic team.
China’s Asian Games and world champion Li Qian triumphed in a middleweight quarter-final against Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain of India, taking a 4-1 win to become the fifth woman from the country to ensure a medal at this Games.
Li’s compatriot and former Asian Games champion Chang Yuan was also victorious, beating North Korea’s Pang Chol-mi on a 3-2 split decision to progress to the final of the bantamweight category. “She is a great rival, we have faced each other many times and I have learned a lot from facing her. I wanted to take those learnings and be better today. A lot of times when you lose, it’s usually down to yourself,” Chang said.
Rio gold medallist Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekistan won his flyweight semi-final against Cape Verde boxer David de Pina, whose bronze was his country’s first Olympic medal. Australia, who arrived at the Games with the largest contingent of boxers (12) but have just two representatives left standing, scored a win in the women’s middleweight quarter-finals when Caitlin Parker beat Moroccan Khadija Mardi 4-1.
Parker’s win saw her move into the semi-finals and become the first Australian woman to win a boxing medal at the Olympics.
In a clash between two Cuban boxers who are now representing different nations, Azerbaijan’s Loren Alfonso beat Spaniard Enmanuel Reyes 4-1 in a heavyweight semi-final. In yesterday’s first bout, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, one of two boxers caught up in a row over eligibility at the Paris Olympics, beat Svetlana Kamenova Staneva of Bulgaria.