It’s all over for history-making professional boxers at Olympics
RIO DE JANEIRO: The controversial move to include professional boxers for the first time in Olympic history lasted all of four days after the remaining pro fighters suffered a mauling on Tuesday.
Three professionals made it to Rio after the landmark decision in June to allow pros to take part in the Olympics, a move which was met with fury in some quarters and claims it might result in serious injury to amateur fighters.
The International Boxing Association (AIBA) hopes to one day lure the biggest names in boxing to the Olympics — think Team USA in the basketball.
It is all designed to boost the popularity of Olympic boxing, especially in the lucrative market of the United States.
But for Rio, boxing chiefs had to make do with three professionals who even most boxing fans would never have heard of.
For all the talk of injury, it was Amnat Ruenroeng — who spent time in a Thai jail for robbery — who looked in danger of getting hurt as France’s Sofiane Oumiha gave him a pasting to hustle his way into the quarterfinals in the lightweight class in devastating fashion.
Earlier in the day, another pro journeyman lightweight, Carmine Tommasone from Italy, was also emphatically sent packing, by a street-smart Cuban.
Tommasone, 32, had no answer to the elusive Jorge Lazaro Alvarez in front of a paltry crowd, allowing the slippery Cuban to reach the latter stages of the competition in Rio with a fully deserved unanimous decision. The third pro, Hassan Ndam Njikam of Cameroon, lost in a debatable decision to a Brazilian boxer on Saturday, the first day of boxing action in Rio.