CARLO Paalam fell a little bit short of giving the Philippines its first boxing medal in the Paris Olympics after losing to Charlie Senior of Australia via split decision in the men’s featherweight quarterfinal, Saturday night.
The closely-fought 57 kg bout came down to the final round when Senior earned the nod of three of the five judges to pull off the thrilling 3-2 win at the North Paris Arena.
The loss put an end to Paalam’s bid to win the elusive gold for Philippine boxing after coming close to achieving the feat in Tokyo four years ago where he ended up bagging the silver medal as a flyweight.
Wade Peterson of Canada, Piroska Beki of Hungary, and Ireland's Ben McGarrigle saw the final round in favor of the 22-year-old Australia despite Paalam connecting on flurries of punches early on and again, as the fight was coming to its final minute.
The 26-year-old Filipino took the first round, 3-2, as he bobbed and weaved his way against the longer reach of Senior, while connecting on hard rights and quick combinations.
But not wasting any chance, the Australian quickly fought as if everything was on the line and engaged Paalam in toe-to-toe exchanges, getting the better end for the most part to take the second round and tied the score going to the make-or-break final round.
Senior, competing in his first Olympics, faces reigning world and Asian champion Abdumalik Khalokov of Uzbekistan. The top seed fighter scored a dominant 5-0 win over Jose Quiles of Spain in the first session of the day.
With Paalam bowing out, the national boxing team is now down to women fighters Nesthy Petecio and Aira Villegas to carry on the Olympic golden dream.
Both fighters are also seeing action in the quarterfinals, with Villegas set to climb the ring at 3 a.m. of Sunday (Manila time) against home bet and seventh seed Wassila Lkhadiri in the 50 kg class.
Petecio, silver medalist in the Tokyo Games, meanwhile, will be up against Xu Zichun of China in the 57 kg class.
A win by both Petecio and Villegas will already assure them of bringing home at least a bronze medal.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph
NOTICE ON UNAUTHORIZED AND UNLAWFUL USE, PUBLICATION, AND/OR DISSEMINATION OF SPIN.PH CONTENT: Please be notified that any unauthorized and unlawful use, publication, and/or dissemination of Spin.ph’s content and/or materials is a direct violation of its legal and exclusive rights to the same, and shall be subject to appropriate legal action/s.
