World Champion U.S. flyweight (51kg) boxer Rau'shee Warren got confused at the last 30 seconds of his bout, and the price he paid was being defeated.
Warren started his fight with eye-catching vigrous attacks and fast foot paces, looking almost like a professional, stirring fanaticism among the audience. But his South Korean opponent Lee Oksung, champion of the 2005 world championships, was not an underdog. He fought back bravely, trying to catch up paces with Warren's, and fired more accurate punches at the American.
The first three rounds were all ties, with 4-4, 2-2 and 1-1 each, greatly entertaining the audience. However, at the last round, when the clock showed only 30 seconds to go and Warren was slightly behind with a 1-2, he suddenly gave up attacks as he should have, and wasted his last chance by circling around the ring, avoiding Lee's attacks. As a result, he lost his first show 8-9.
Everyone was confused, including Warren himself and his coach. "No, I didn't know I was down," he said after the match. "I thought I was up, when my coach started telling me to start throwing punches."
His coach Dan Campbell said: "I was confused about why he stopped. I think he heard someone in the stands yelling move, but we were screaming at him to punch."
Warren's failure crushed the U.S. gold dream as he was the most hopeful for a boxing gold at the Beijing Olympics.
Another unexpected blow whipped to the French team. Jerome Thomas, silver medalist at the Athens Olympics, was defeated by low-rated Domincan Juan Carlos Payano.
The youngest boxer of this Olympic boxing tournament, 17-year-old Turkish 51kg boxer Furkan Ulas Memis made his debut at the international arena. Despite a loss, Memis enjoyed the luxury of time to become better in the future.
Other 51kg heavyweights including runner-up of last year's World Championship Thai Somjit Jongjohor, second runner-ups Italian Vincenzo Picardi and Azerbaijani Samir Mammadov, all crushed their rivals with ease.
At the Bantamweight (54kg) competition, Chinese boxer Gu Yu gave Chinese audience a pleasant surprise by fighting gorgeously, defeating powerful rival British Joe Murray, runner-up of last years's World Championships.
Gu took a good start by gaining four points at the first round, and was quickly in charge of the rhythm of the fight. He defended himself tightly from the blustering attacks of the Briton, and managed to punch accurately to score. In the boisterous cheering from the crowd, Gu finished the game with a 10-point lead.
"My performance was just Ok at the match," Gu told Xinhua after the fight. "My opponent was actually better than me."
"I didn't set any specific goal for this Olympics," he added. "I just want to fight every game well, and see how far I can go."
German veteran Rustamhodza Rahimov was washed out by his Uzbek rival due to lack of physical strength. World Champion Russian Sergey Vodopyanov and runner-up Mongolian Badar-Uugan Enkhbat, however, smashed their respective challengers without shedding too much sweat.
(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2008)