U.S. staging an Olympics ring revival
Team aims for gold after ensuring largest medal harvest since 2000
TOKYO — On the greatest day U.S. Olympic boxing has had in 21 years, featherweight Duke Ragan was standing in a walkway beneath the Kokugikan Arena on Tuesday, talking about a T-shirt.
Ragan had just won a split decision over Ghana’s Samuel Takyi to reach the gold medal match. On a television before him, fellow American Keyshawn Davis was beating Russian
Gabil Mamedov to clinch a lightweight medal, the United States’ fourth in boxing in these Olympics, something it hadn’t accomplished since 2000. This was history, someone was saying to Ragan.
But in the hallway, Ragan, 23, was thinking about a shirt — a silly shirt, really, his family had made back when he was 6 years old and former U.S. Olympic boxer Rau’shee Warren let him hold his championship belt at the
Cincinnati gym where Ragan’s brother was training. Someone took a photo of the little boy holding the big belt.
A person in Ragan’s family who ran a T-shirt shop printed that photo on a shirt with the words: “Future Olympic Gold Medalist.” The shirt was way too big. Ragan had to tie it in the back just to keep it from flopping around. But he wore it all the time.
And those words — “Future Olympic Gold Medalist” — became his dream.
“It’s always been a goal of mine,” he said.
The path to Thursday’s gold medal fight has not been an easy one. Once a rising star for USA Boxing, he lost in the Olympic trials in 2019 and decided to turn professional, convinced the dream printed on a T-shirt never would come true. He’s back only because the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation American qualifier, of the forcing Pan Olympic organizers to fill the allotted slots based on points built up as amateurs. Since have professional been allowed boxers to fight in the Olympics since 2016 and Ragan had enough points to qualify, he was added to the U.S. team, along with Davis and
Troy Isley. Isley lost earlier in the Olympics, but Ragan and Davis have moved along until Tuesday when Ragan was going for gold and Davis for the semifinals where boxers automatically get at least bronze.
Both of them struggled. Both trailed early. Ragan had to endure a steady onslaught of fast blows from Takyi, who was trying to be the first person from his country to win a gold medal. Takyi’s hair was dyed gold and others from Ghana’s delegation stood in the arena’s upper balcony, shouting his name and pounding on drums.
But Ragan withstood the last round, just as Davis did against Mamedov. The deciding moment for Davis came when he caught Mamedov with a right that momentarily froze him and caused the referee to give him an eight count. It was similar to the blow that ended Davis’s fight last Saturday against France’s Sofiane Oumiha, who never recovered from the punch. On Tuesday, Mamedov on. was able to go “I was hoping [the fight would be stopped] because of how tough he is,” Davis said of Mamedov. “I was ready to get that over with.” Instead, Mamedov kept coming, and the two exchanged big blasts until the end when the judges unanimously said Davis won the final round with 10- 9 scores. “In the end I came out with a victory, and that’s all that matters,” Davis said. Neither U. S. fighter seemed thrilled with his performance. Both talked about the adjustment of going back to the quick-paced amateur style where fighters try to land lots of punches in the three-round bouts rather than swinging for knockouts as the professionals do. Regardless, the United States now has more boxing medals than the three it won in Rio de Janeiro, continuing the team’s slow revival under coach Billy Walsh, who arrived in 2014 after years of coaching his native Ireland. On Wednesday, women’s welterweight Oshea Jones and men’s super heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr. will be fighting to get to gold medal matches as well. And for now, that’s all the American fighters have been talking about — winning gold — despite the fact no male U.S. Olympic boxer has won a gold medal since Andre Ward in 2004. “If I go back to America with a bronze medal, they will have everything negative or bad to say,” Davis said. “My real supporters will say, ‘Keep your head up.‘ that. I’m I’m trying not trying to win to gold. hear That’s what I’m here to do: win gold. Gold. Gold. Gold.” Just like the shirt someone once made a little boy in Cincinnati. A shirt that Duke Ragan has kept for all these years — “a picture of a little kid with a big old head,” he says with a laugh. When he learned he was going to the Olympics, he had more copies of the shirt made, handing them out to family members and keeping one for himself that he brought with him to Tokyo. “Future Olympic Gold Medalist.” Who could have known those words above a photo of 6-year-old boy actually might come true?