Esparza, Fuchs on different paths
Houston-area boxers Ginny Fuchs and Marlen Esparza spent 16 grueling minutes nose to nose last week, competing for a prize that only one could win, and now face decidedly different paths over the next nine months.
Fuchs, 27, of Kemah, is preparing for the biggest challenge of her career after twice beating Esparza at the USA Boxing women’s Olympic Trials in Memphis to make the three-member U.S. team in the 112-pound flyweight division.
Her agenda: rest, train, travel, take the final steps toward qualifying for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Esparza, 26, of Houston, the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, will be unable to achieve a goal that has driven her for the past three years, to grab the gold medal that eluded her four years ago in London.
Her agenda: devastating uncertainty.
‘Exactly as I planned’
Fuchs twice beat Esparza at the double-elimination Olympic Trials in Memphis after losing five previous times to the defending world champion. Seeded second to Esparza in the eight-fighter field, she won a unanimous decision in their first fight and a split decision in the first of two potential elimination bouts to sew up the Olympic team berth.
“It went exactly as I planned,” Fuchs said. “I used her jab to get in her face, keep her out of her rhythm and control the ring. And I kept my composure. Even when she got in some good punches, I didn’t get anxious and try to force anything.”
Stability loomed large in Fuchs’ success at the trials. She said she gained confidence from working with her coach, Derwin Richards, and with trainer Aaron Navarro and strength and conditioning coach Evins Tobler.
Esparza, meanwhile, has twice changed training locations and coaches since returning to boxing after a brief departure following the 2012 Olympics.
Still, Esparza feels she won the deciding fight against Fuchs that could have forced an elimination bout, and she is at a loss of what to do now that she is essentially eliminated from the field for Rio.
“I wasn’t prepared for this,” Esparza said. “Virginia is a good fighter, but I’ve beaten people with way more of a skill set. My brain still can’t comprehend what has happened. I haven’t wrapped my head around it.
“I can’t be angry at somebody who accomplished what she tried to do. She did her best and the judges voted for her. That’s all there is to it.”
Esparza’s losses, ironically, came within days of Nike introducing its first women’s boxing boots bearing her initials, and they came the same week that she was featured in a Nike commercial titled “Snow Day” that also featured NFL stars Rob Gronkowski and Ndamukong Suh and USA Soccer stars Carli Lloyd and Sydney Leroux, among others.
Esparza acknowledges that she focused before the trials on settling a longstanding grudge against Christina Cruz, whom she twice fought and beat in the trials, but did not prepare sufficiently for her first fight with Fuchs.
“The thing about Virginia is that she doesn’t give up, and that’s the hardest person to fight I wasn’t prepared,” Esparza said. “But the second fight, I dominated her. If I couldn’t win with that performance, I wasn’t going to win. Boxing is a political sport. That’s my world.”
‘That’s her opinion’
Of Esparza’s contention that she won the second fight, Fuchs said, “That’s her opinion. Most people in their position might think they got robbed. But this was double elimination. You don’t win on a fluke in a double-elimination tournament.”
Fuchs now will have two opportunities next year to qualify for a spot in Rio and said she is confident she can hold her own in an international field.
“International boxers are more boxers than aggressors,” she said. “They keep their space better than the girls I fight here. I box them as well, but I use my aggression a little more.”
Esparza expects Fuchs to struggle against international fighters and still holds on to the narrowest of hopes that she can somehow gain a wild card entry into the Olympics, In the meantime, she said she will take college classes and is even toying with taking up distance running in an effort to seek that path toward the Olympics.
“I have options. I have other things to do” she said. “I want to be wrong. I want (Fuchs) to win and for the U.S. to have medals. She’s a sweet person, which is hard to come across in boxing. But it’s a different animal out there (in international boxing).”