Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Boxing – Males’s Featherweight – Quarterfinal – KKG – Kokugikan Area – Tokyo, Japan – August 1, 2021. Samuel Takyi of Ghana in action against Ceiber Avila of Colombia REUTERS/Yara Nardi
TOKYO, Aug 1 (Reuters) – A dramatic day of action earlier than the gold medal bouts open taking feature featured a disqualification that ended in a wrathful Frenchman refusing to stir from the ring, while Samuel Takyi secured Ghana’s first Olympic boxing medal in nearly 50 years.
In the closing match of the early session at Tokyo’s Kokugikan arena on Sunday, French neat heavyweight Mourad Aliev was disqualified for what the referee deemed an intentional headbutt – a call he protested with an hour-prolonged ring-aspect sit down-in.
That was splendid after the Moscow-born Frenchman expressed his contempt for the choice by spitting out his mouth guard and kicking it away, flashing offensive gestures twice and shaking and punching at a TV digicam.
“It be fully unfair – I was profitable the match,” Aliev commended a throng of reporters after in the end leaving in the support of his ring-aspect region. The most necessary spherical had long gone to Aliev 3-2.
His opponent, Britain’s Frazer Clarke, suffered cuts on his face and received the bout with four seconds left in the 2nd spherical.
The day turned out far better for Ghanaian featherweight Samuel Takyi, who overpowered his Colombian opponent Ceiber Avila to favor as a minimum a bronze – the country’s first boxing medal in nearly 50 years. It was moreover the country’s first medal at the Olympics since Ghana received bronze in soccer in 1992.
“I’m going to beget history and I’m going to favor the gold coloration,” Takyi said, his short hair dyed in a golden hue for the Tokyo Video games.
As a panting Avila retreated to his nook after the closing bell, 20-twelve months-stale Takyi jumped up on the ropes to salute his Ghanaian team mates in the stands, then pranced over to his nook to mutter their very dangle praises with a pair of push-ups.
“I favor boxers in my division to search me,” he said about his youthful sign. “I’m the exact and I will be the exact ever. I’m going to manufacture something, I’m going to beget a unprecedented history.”
Takyi will meet American Duke Ragan in the semi-finals.
In totally different places, Filipino middleweight Eumir Marcial knocked out Armenia’s Arman Darchinyan with a correct hook to cruise into the semi-finals, securing him as a minimum a bronze medal.
“It be like a dream attain factual,” Marcial said of his guaranteed medal.
“When I was young and started boxing we talked about this with my father and … I’m an Olympic medallist now,” added Marcial, who was trained by his father early on and now works with Corridor-of-Fame coach Freddie Roach in the United States.
“But I favor the gold so I’ll manufacture my splendid to give my splendid efficiency and fade away the relaxation to God.”
In other weight courses, Britain’s Pat McCormack evolved to the boys’s welterweight closing by walkover after Eire’s Aidan Walsh pulled out with an ankle injure, taking dwelling a bronze.
In the light-heavyweight class, fellow Briton Ben Whittaker beat Russian Imam Khataev by chop up choice for a shot at gold.
Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, bettering by Pritha Sarkar
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