Sat, Aug 03, 2024 page7

• Chen Nien-chin advances

  • Staff writer, with CNA and AP, VILLEPINTE, France
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  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.

  

  Taiwan’s Chen Nien-chin throws a punch at Barbara Maria dos Santos of Brazil during their women’s 66kg bout at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.

  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.

  

  Italy’s Angela Carini, front, reacts after abandoning her women’s 66kg bout against Imane Khelif of Algeria at the North Paris Arena at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.

  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.
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