Chen Nien-chin on Thursday moved one win away from securing a second medal in women’s boxing for Taiwan at the Paris Olympics.
Chen upset No. 3 seed Barbara Maria dos Santos of Brazil 5-0 in the round-of-16 in the women’s 66kg (welterweight) division to match her record in Tokyo three years ago.
Chen, 27, needs only one more win to be guaranteed to bag the first Olympic medal of her career, as there is no bronze-medal match in Olympic boxing.
Photo: AP
The Asian Games bronze medalist is scheduled to face Uzbekistan’s Navbakhor Khamidova today.
If she wins, Chen will join Wu Shih-yi, who on Wednesday secured a spot in the women’s 60kg (lightweight) semi-final. She is to fight Yang Wen-lu of China today.
There was controversy elsewhere in the 66kg category.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Imane Khelif and Angela Carini on Thursday exchanged a few brisk punches in their 46 seconds in the ring, which was enough to persuade Carini that her Olympic debut was finished.
The Italian abruptly walked away from her Algerian opponent and went to her corner, abandoning her bout — a rare occurrence in Olympic boxing.
Carini did not shake Khelif’s hand after the referee formally raised it, but she cried in the ring after sinking to her knees. Minutes afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of the pain from those opening punches.
“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said: ‘Enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.
Khelif was disqualified from last year’s world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test.
Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she was not making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif.
Carini said she is not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete.
“I just did my job as a boxer,” Carini said. “I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”
Carini later received a visit from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who consoled the boxer in a photo posted on Meloni’s Instagram page.
“I know you won’t give up, Angela and I know one day you will win what you deserve with effort and sweat. In a competition that is finally equal,” Meloni wrote.
Khelif could clinch an Olympic medal with a victory in the quarter-finals today against Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary.
Hamori expressed no concern about fighting Khelif.
“I’m not scared,” she said. “I don’t care about the press story and social media. If she or he is a man, it will be a bigger victory for me if I win.”
After years of competition in amateur tournaments around the world, Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan have received scrutiny for their presence in Paris.
Lin won IBA world championships in 2018 and 2022, but was stripped of a bronze medal last year because of a failed biochemical test.
Lin was to fight Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the 57kg category after press time last night.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS