INCHEON, South Korea—The quest for more gold medals for a relieved Team Philippines resumes with four boxers climbing the ring on Thursday with hopes of making the finals of their respective divisions in the 17th Asian Games.
Wednesday was rest day for boxing, giving all protagonists in the semifinals a much-needed time to rest their aching bodies from the tedious preliminaries and for their coaches to strategize.
Coaches Nolito “Boy” Velasco, Roel Velasco and Romeo Brin wasted no time harnessing their wards further as boxing hopes to follow up on Daniel Caluag’s gold medal-winning ride in cycling’s BMX on Wednesday.
“The semis is all what we need to hurdle,” Nolito Velasco said in Filipino. “If we jump over the semifinals, we will net all our marbles in the finals on Friday. We’ll go all out!”
Lightweight Charly Suarez, the most veteran on the team, climbs the ring first against Mohammad Mustafa Alkabesh of Jordan in the afternoon session. Olympian Mark Anthony Barriga, Mario Fernandez and Wilfredo Lopez will see action in the evening session starting at 7 p.m.
But the coaching staff are pouring more attention on the 21-year-old Barriga, who will face South Korea’s Shin Jong-hun.
Shin was a controversial 3-0 winner over India’s Singh Laishram in their light-flyweight quarterfinals clash on Tuesday. The South Korean hardly connected a clever punch against Laishra, a brawler who controlled the fight all the way only to be frustrated by the judges.
“This would be a difficult fight. What we need to do is to fight and fight and fight,” Velasco said.
But Barriga, who fought thrice—against rivals from Syria, Japan and Uzbekistan—appeared confident. “I am ready and, in boxing, we are all equal atop the ring,” he said.
If Barriga wins, he will advance against the winner of the other semifinals between Birzhan Zhakpov of Kazakhstan and Turat Osmonov of Kyrgyzstan. Osmonov also won a controversial quarterfinal bout.
Fernandez, the 21-year-old who eliminated reigning Asian bantamweight champion Shiva Thapa of India also on Tuesday, 3-0, faces China’s Zhang Jiawei.
Lopez, owner of the fastest and easiest victory on Tuesday night when he was declared winner via technical knockout over Shinebayar Narmandakh of Mongolia, takes on Oday Riyad Adel Alhindawi of Jordan in the middleweight class.
Lopez, who at 29 is the oldest among the four remaining Filipino boxers in contention for the gold, simply pounced on a cut under Narmandakh’s right eyebrow to score the abbreviated win in two minutes and five seconds of the first round.
Up next for Lopez if he survives Alhindawi would be either Navrus Jafoev of Tajikistan or Zhanibek Alimkhanuly of Kazakhstan.
Suarez’s opponent, Alkabesh, was a silver-medal winner while fighting as a bantamweight in last year’s Asian Championship in Amman, Jordan. Otgondoalai Dornjnyambuu of Mongolia and Satoshi Shimizu of Japan face each other in the other semifinal of Suarez’s division.
To maximize Wednesday’s rest day, the coaching staff watched the fight videos of their wards’ rivals after an intensive morning workout in a park at the Athletes’ Village.