VETERAN Charly Suarez scored the second Filipino victory on Sunday afternoon and Nesthy Petecio followed suit late in the evening at the Asian-Oceanian Olympic Qualification event in Qian’An in Hebei Province, China.
The muscular lightweight from Davao, who fights in all three programs of the International Amateur Boxing Association (Aiba)-World Series of Boxing, Aiba Pro Boxing and Aiba Open Boxing, stamped his class on Chinese Taipei’s national champion Lai Chu-En on Easter Sunday.
Suarez, seeded No. 2 in the lightweight category, dazzled his opponent from the opening bell, prompting the referee from Kazakhstan to give the Taiwanese a standing 8-count about a minute into the fight after getting rocked with a right hook to the head.
Then, toward the end of that first round, the referee again gave Lai the 8-count as he absorbed a hard right uppercut to the belly. The judges from Russia, Cuba and Sri Lanka had the Filipino winning convincingly with identical cards of 30-26.
“He’s a bit young and inexperienced. But I didn’t lose my focus because he’s fast and has some power,” said Suarez of his 20-year-old foe who, just a day before, upset a favored boxer from Turkmenistan.
Suarez now moves on to the quarterfinals against India’s Dheeeraj Tuesday.
Petecio, a silver medalist at the last Aiba World Women’s Championships in Korea, also dominated her Micronesian opponent, Jennifer Chieng, in four rounds, to take the decision, with the judges from Hungary scoring it 40-36, Great Britain 40-36 and Uzbekistan 40-35, all for the Filipina boxer.
“The tournament is just starting. You need either four or five wins here to qualify for the Olympics. But we’re off to a good start,” said delegation head and Abap Executive Director Ed Picson.
Three more boxers will debut on Monday. No. 1 seeds Rogen Ladon (light-flyweight) and Eumir Felix Marcial (welterweight) face Japan’s Tosho Kashiwasaki and Kori Istafanos of Australia, respectively.
Bantamweight Mario Fernandez, who drew a bye in the first round, will go up versus Yakub Meredov of Turkmenistan while Roldan Boncales (who won on Saturday) takes to the ring a second time to engage No. 4 seed Oizhas Sattibayev of Kazkhstan.