Amateur boxing on the ropes
BY winning a silver medal in the men’s 55-kilogram division at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, Carlo Paalam prevented a medal shutout for the Philippine boxing team.
Paalam took home the silver after a razor-close 3–2 split decision loss to Japanese Rui Yamaguchi in the gold medal match.
Paalam finished strong and clearly won the third round on all of the five judges’ scorecards. However, the lead Yamaguchi built in the first two rounds proved enough to secure him the gold.
Paalam’s silver medal finish was an improvement of his bronze medal finish in the 2018 edition of the Asian Games. It also preserved the country’s unbroken streak of winning a boxing medal in the Asian Games since 1954.
However, with Paalam settling for the silver, the boxing gold medal drought in the Asian Games continued.
The last time a Filipino boxer collared a gold medal in the Asian Games was 2010, when Rey Saludar topped the men’s 52-kg division.
The country sent seven boxers to this year’s Asian Games: Paalam, Eumir Marcial, Junmilardo Ogayre, Norlan Petecio, Nesthy Petecio, Aira Villegas, and Riza Pasuit.
Marcial withdrew at the last minute as he was coming off a professional contest in the United States.
Villegas and Pasuit were eliminated in the round of 32, Norlan Petecio in the round of 16, and Ogayre and Nesthy Petecio in the quarterfinals. Only Paalam advanced to the medal round.
As things stand, the road ahead figures to be very bumpy for Philippine boxing in the amateur scene.
The next stop is the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
The qualifying tournaments for the 2028 Olympics will start in April 2027, when Kazakhstan hosts the World (Amateur) Boxing Championships.
This will be followed by the Asian Olympic Boxing Qualification Event in China.
The Philippine team is expected to lean on familiar faces: former Olympic medalists Paalam (silver, 2020 Tokyo), Nesthy Petecio (silver, 2020 Tokyo; bronze, 2024 Paris), and Marcial (bronze, 2020 Tokyo).
Relying on the same veterans highlights the Philippine team’s struggle to develop fresh fistic talents.
Paalam (28), Petecio (34) and Marcial (30) are all getting up in years.
Marcial is already a professional boxer, but he continues to moonlight as an amateur whenever a tournament like the Asian Games or the Olympics crop up.
In the boxing competitions for the Southeast Asian Games last year in Thailand, the Philippine team had to tap the services of another pro boxer, Weljon Mindoro.
Mindoro, a noted puncher in the pros, failed to make the necessary adjustments in the amateur level and settled for the bronze medal after losing to Vietnam’s Bui Phuoc Tung.
Men’s boxing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics has been trimmed to only seven weight classes. The lightest of these is now 55 kg (about 121 pounds), which matches the junior featherweight division (122 pounds) in professional ranks.
The lower weight divisions where Filipino Olympic boxers like Mansueto and Roel Velasco excelled no longer exist. Mansueto famously won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the 48-kg light flyweight division, which is equivalent to the minimumweight (105 pounds) division in pro boxing.
Olympic slots for Asian boxers will be up for grabs in the World (Amateur) Boxing Championships, but our boxers will be hard-pressed to clinch a berth.
The competition in the Asian region has become tougher. Out of 13 total boxing gold medals awarded at the 2024 Paris Olympics, nine were won by Asian boxers (approximately 69.2 percent).
Uzbekistan won five gold medals in the men’s division while China snared three golds in the women’s category.
While our Asian neighbors have beefed up their national teams, the infusion of fresh blood in the Philippine boxing team has been almost non-existent.
Uzbekistan is represented by a single national squad that undergoes a strict, rigid selection process. The Uzbekistan Boxing Federation determines its roster through national championships, selection camps, and coaching evaluations.
Uzbekistan boasts immense depth and rotates younger prospects in youth, Under-22 or secondary international cups.
The old Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines used to ran a localized grassroots program often referred to as “Go-For-Gold” boxing. The program followed an Olympic-style, regional format and became the promising boxers’ pipeline to the national pool.
The fact that the Philippine boxing team continues to bank on the veterans underlines the need to overhaul the grassroots program, that is, if the current Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines even has one.
