THE Tokyo Olympics deserved an encore, and Carlo Paalam willingly obliged.
In a fitting follow up to his momentous silver medal finish at the Tokyo Olympics, Paalam delivered anew by bagging the gold in the ASBC Asian Elite and Women Boxing Championships in Amman, Jordan last November.
On the way to the top, the 24-year-old native of Bukidnon beat two of the best in the 54 kg class where the Filipino is fighting for the very first time.
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Paalam scored a 5-0 shutout of No. 2 Sanzhai Seidakmatov in the semifinals to advance to the gold medal round, where he edged top seed Makhmud Sabyrkhan of Kazakhstan via a 4-1 split decision.
Paalam’s stirring victory brightened up the Philippines’ campaign in the biennial meet after Nesthy Petecio and Hergie Bacyadan were each relegated to a bronze medal in the women’s featherweight and middleweight divisions, respectively.
It was the first Asian Championship stint for Paalam.
It was also the first tournament for the Filipino boxer after the Tokyo Games, making his gold medal feat even more surprising given his inactivity for more than a year.
Paalam’s yearend triumph was among the few big moments of Philippine boxing for 2022 - a year that saw Filipino world champions fell one after the other like pieces of dominoes.
And the former scavenger turned Olympic hero scoring yet another knockout for Philippine boxing made him deserving of the SPIN.ph’s Fighter of the Year honor in its 10th Sportsman of the Year (SOTY) award.
So much was expected of Paalam since his triumvirate with Petecio and middleweight Eumir Marcial gave the country an unprecedented three Olympic medals in boxing during the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Along with his fellow Olympians, he was supposed to banner the country’s campaign in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam in the aftermath of the Olympics.
Unfortunately, coaches of the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) were convinced Paalam was not up to par as far as conditioning was concerned for the SEA Games, resulting in his failure to join the team in Hanoi.
Rogen Ladon, also an Olympian like Paalam, took over the spot in the men’s flyweight class where Paalam was the defending champion.
“Carlo is still catching up with his conditioning,” said ABAP secretary-general Marcus Jarwin Manalo back then. “So hindi na sila (Paalam and Ladon) nagkaroon ng box-off.”
Ladon eventually retained the flyweight gold for the Philippines.
But determined to get back in action, Paalam made sure he won’t be missing the boxing team’s campaign in the ASBC tournament.
Paalam moved up in weight and fought in the bantamweight class, while Ladon secured the spot at flyweight.
As members of the 12-man Philippine team fell by the wayside one after the other, Paalam slowly moved his way up.
He beat Muhanov Dovlet by unanimous decision in his first bout as a bantamweight, and then scored the same result in his quarterfinal match against Yoon Joo Sung of Korea.
The Filipino fighter now based in Cagayan De Oro did the same thing in the semis against Seidakmatov, before finding himself in a tough fight against Sabyrkhan for the gold.
Unruffled by his heavily favored Kazakshtan foe, a silver medalist in the 2021 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Belgrade, Paalam set the tone of the bout by taking the opening round on scores of 10-9 from all five judges.
Sabyrkhan put the pressure on the Filipino in the last two rounds, but were not enough to turn the tide.
In the end, Paalam got the nod of the judge from United Arab Emirates, 30-27, while earning similar scores of 29-28 from the three other judges representing India, Ireland, and Slovakia.
The judge from Italy had it in favor of the Kazakhs, 29-28.
“Pilipinas, salamat sa suporta. Nakuha natin ang gintong medalya,” said an ecstatic Paalam as he basked in the limelight of another major tournament again.
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