BANGKOK — Joan Tipon and other national fighters will have
to earn Olympic berths in the second Asian qualifying tournament next month in
Kazakhstan.
Tipon absorbed a 6-9 defeat to Thai ace Worapoj Petchkoom in
the semifinals on Friday, ending his hopes of clinching a berth in the Beijing
Olympics in August and completing a humiliating shutout for the five-man RP
PLDT-Smart boxing team that vied for Olympic slots here.
Tipon tried to rally with a barrage of punches in the fourth
round but could only make it 6-8 as he failed to impress the judges despite
connecting with solid blows to the face, enabling Petchkoom to clinch victory
with counterpunches, including a soft tag to the face.
"Konti pa. Medyo kasi nalamangan agad kaya nahirapan nang
humabol," coach Pat Gaspi said.
Despite Petchkoom’s three-point win, Gaspi said the result
could have gone either way, saying the Thai fighter was awarded at least two
points on soft punches although he stressed the Athens Olympics silver medalist
won it fair and square.
The five-man RP PLDT-Smart boxing team will go home
empty-handed, its goal of clinching at least two Olympic berths smashed by a
top-caliber field.
"This is just a temporary setback. We will bounce back,"
said boxing chief Manny Lopez, who practically had to ask the intervention of
the AIBA (International Boxing Federation) to be able to compete here after the
Thai organizers tried to disqualify the RP boxers for their failure to register
on time.
Tipon did all the right things in whipping Pakistan’s
Mukamamad Ali in the quarterfinals but failed to repeat the trick against
Petchkoom, who cleverly fought at a distance and leaned on shots that came in
trickles.
In a fight billed as explosive owing to the caliber of two
of the region’s top fighters in the bantamweight division, Tipon and Petchkoom
virtually turned it into a lackluster duel as both spent most of the time
sizing up each other.
Referee Potiev Nurmuhammed of Turkmenistan twice admonished
the two to mix it up.
Petchkoom scored in a brief exchange at center in the
opening round and carried a 1-0 lead into the second where the Thai stepped up
his charge with counterpunches each time Tipon made a lunge for the body.
Petchkoom, egged on by boisterous home fans, took a 4-1 lead
in the third and piled up two more points as against Tipon’s one to virtually
clinch the match with a 6-2 lead in the fourth.
Tipon, cheered on endlessly by the big Filipino crowd, went for broke and
changed to attack mode but failed to impress judges J. Dolmayos of Hungary,
Takeo Tachikawa of Japan, M. Budkiv of Russia, Mohamed Zahra of Syria and
Taiwan’s Chen Jing-ming.
