Favored Cuban bantamweight Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz was upset on Tuesday by Agasi Mehmet Agaguloglu of Azerbaijan on the third day of the 12th World Amateur Boxing Championships at Bangkok's Nimibutr Gymnasium.
Agaguloglu had lost to Rigondeaux, the world champion and Sydney Olympic Games gold medalist in two previous outings, but triumphed 16-13 on Tuesday.
Cuban pride was salvaged in the welterweight division when Lorenzo Aragon Armenteros defeated Bulent Ulusoy of Turkey 18-17, and heavyweight Odlanier Solis Fonte beat Spiridon Kladouhas of Greece.
The US team of 11 boxers celebrated its first victory Tuesday, when Andre Berto of Winter Haven, Florida defeated Yasiavichus Rolandas of Lithuania, 29-22, in the welterweight division.
After several first-round losses by other members of the US team, head coach Frank Gentile complained Tuesday about the tournament's scoring.
"I just think some of the judging is a little bit off than what I'm used to," he said. "In the United States, we judge the points a bit differently than they do here. We're gonna start adjusting to it."
He said there had been some American losses which seemed like clear victories, and that he thought the judges "could be more fair."
Russian victors Tuesday included bantamweight Gennadi Kovalev, who beat Hungary's Zsolt Bedak 43-20; welterweight Andrey Mishin, who beat Greece's Georgios Bilis when the referee stopped the contest, and heavyweight Alexandre Alexseev, who defeated Shamsidin Arbobov of Tajikistan when the referee stopped the fight.
Two hometown favorites advanced Tuesday. Thai bantamweight Thongdang Kongjran defeated Canada's Andrew Kooner, while his welterweight teammate Manon Boonjamnong beat Italy's Leonard Bundu.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier