MORE BOXERS BOOK OLYMPIC SPOTS THROUGH ‘BOX-OFFS’
Mar 11, 2020
A further 11 boxers have booked their places at this summer’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games through the box-off matches involving fighters who lost in the quarter-finals at the Asian/Oceanian Olympic qualifiers being held in Amman.
With all of the semi-finalists guaranteeing qualification, the box-offs provided one last chance for those who reached the last eight of several weights to make up the 63 total quota places available in Jordan this week.
In the morning session on the last day, the prequel to the evening’s 13 finals, men’s Lightweight 63kg top seed, Bakhodur Usmonov, of Tajikistan, bounced back from his quarter-final defeat to Jordan’s Obada Al-Kesbeh, to beat Iran’s Ashkan Rezaei to ensure his Tokto 2020 spot.
Also in the same weight, Manish Kaushik, of India, withstood a last round barrage from Australia’s Harry Garside to go through on a split decision.
In the Flyweight 52kg weight, Kazakhstan’s Saken Bibossinov and Australia’s Alex Winwood secured their Tokyo 2020 tickets, while in the weight above, the Featherweight 57kg, Iran’s Daniyal Shahbakshsh, and Thailand’s Chatchai-Decha Butdee also won their places on the plane to Japan.
There were celebrations for the Olympic host nation, Japan, with Tokyo resident Sewonrets Okazawa winning through, courtesy of a unanimous decision against China’s Qiong Maimaititu in the men’s Welterweight 69kg.
Iran’s World No. 8, Seyedshahin Mousavi, will compete in Japan this summer after edging a split decision against impressive Mongolian, Byamba Otgonbaatar, for the final Middleweight 75kg spot.
The last fight of the morning session saw Shabbos Negmatulloev secure a comfortable victory over India’s Sachin Kumar for the Middleweight 81kg final quota spot.
Earlier in the session, the final two women’s spots were booked in the Flyweight 51kg division with Uzbekistan’s Tursunov Rakhimova and The Philippines’ Irish Magno confirming their passages with wins.
