AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 12
IABA. IOC. Strandja, Bulgaria 72nd International Boxing Tournament update on the gold medals. Join us on our on-going exploration of the Olympics to be held in Tokyo 2021, featuring Christian from the Friday Night Panel, and the route to the ring. Watch TalkinFight weekdays at 12, 4, 7, and 8:30pm EST on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live @Olympic @IOC Media @Abroad in Japan @strandja
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Transcribed:
Hello, there talking fight fans, welcome once again to another episode of the olympics, featuring christian from the friday night panel, and i believe, you’re going to do a recap of the strandia tournament held over in sofia, bulgaria, this past uh.
Well, actually, this past week, uh wrapping up, i believe, a couple days ago on saturday, if i’m not mistaken, am i right that is correct? Uh, we saw a lot of great boxing over the weekend, but one of the big ones was uh saturday morning.
I don’t know about you, but i got to uh spend saturday morning lying in bed with my tablet.
Nobody bothering me, and i got to watch boxing for hours so uh.
I had a pretty good, pretty good start to my weekend, so i want to take you through the gold medal bouts here, just because it was the final of the 72nd uh stranded tournament, which is the oldest tournament in europe, uh for amateur boxing and a lot Of the names that you’re gon na hear today were are gon na, be names that you’re gon na be hearing at the olympics coming up.
So i thought it might be a good idea to take a look into this, so we’re going to run through the gold medal bets and we’ll start with the women’s bets and we’re going to work our way, uh from latest working up to the heaviest weight classes.
Here and we’ll just keep it in the same order that they actually ran the tournament.
So the women’s fly limit weight started off of the day with kazakhstan’s angelina lucas fighting bulgaria stoica cresteva now round.
One lucas was definitely the aggressor here, but krestovo was landing.
Better punches throughout the course of the first round.
Uh second round started a bit more measured and you saw uh more of that feeling, each other out that you would have normally seen in the first round.
They dialed things back.
They slowed it down a little bit.
Uh crystal upped the intensity in the second half of that round, uh with one hold actually ending when both fighters landing flat on the canvas in the third round.
It really looked like by this point.
Lucas just had could not figure out crest of a southpaw stance, and she was obviously frustrated by the end of the third uh, with several headlocks resulting from uh clinches.
When these guys came together at the end of the day, the gold medal ended up going to bulgaria on a unanimous decision, silver to kazakhstan and a bronze to uh, both the us and romania moving up into the women’s lightweight uh category or 57 kilogram.
I once again saw bulgaria what the bulgarians had five uh different people in the finals.
Today, i might add so they were they’re well represented today, uh, so bulgaria’s stan stanimira petrova uh took on russia’s karina tezapakova now round.
One petrova was the quicker on her feet, demonstrating superior footwork tazobakova sent petrova staggering into the ropes will look great with a really big left right at the end of the first round.
When round two started uh, you know they were they’re trading.
Big hits right out of the uh right out of the gate, so to speak, petrova eager to rectify the left that she took early in round one now.
This was exactly what tazzabakova wanted, though uh she’s not as fast as petrova.
So if petrova wanted to stand still, instead of dancing circles around, her was all the better uh petrova did figure this out, though, about halfway through the round – and you know, got herself moving at that point in time that, after that, the flight was pretty much classic Tortoise and hair petrova moving around the perimeter of the uh of the ring, with tazapakova stalking her until she finally caught her on the ropes right at the very end of the third round.
I wasn’t enough, though, and bulgaria took this one again on a split decision.
This time so gold of bulgaria, a silver to russia and a bronze once again for bulgaria and one for ukraine, so the bulgarians taking two medals in this particular category in the women’s white light welterweight saw finland’s mira potkinan take on brazil’s beatrice ferreira, now putin in We’Ve talked about before she was the one who beat katie, harrington, uh, sorry, katie taylor at the rio olympics and her bronze at the rio games was actually finland’s only medal at that entire olympiad uh.
But after the gate, though, ferreira was getting the better of early exchanges, pukkin was doing her best to keep ferreira at arm’s length with her jab with only minimal success.
Uh pocket was also a little bit more reserved than what we saw in some of her earlier fights where she was the aggressor for most of uh.
Those earlier abouts a little bit more reserved this guy going into this one round.
Two, just as kind of puck in his fight was starting to come good.
She figured out kind of the pace of ferreira, all of a sudden uh.
The fight was stopped because ferrero’s headgear came loose once we resumed action.
Ferreira was still managing to land.
The larger hits out of the two of them, but it was pretty obvious that uh pukkin was adapting their style with.
You know some measured success, um and that would be when the olympic channel dropped the feed and we lost the end of the second round and the beginning of the third, unfortunately technology.
What are you going to do so when we did rejoin the action? Both fighters were looking tired but pretty evenly matched, unfortunately, for puckkin and though she needed a last minute burst of energy, which she just wasn’t able to summon.
So gold ended up going to brazil’s uh ferrara on a unanimous decision, silver to finland and a bronze for kazakhstan and one for russia on a slightly sad note on this one.
The tournament obviously wasn’t prepared for a brazilian to win a gold medal on saturday, as, unlike every other contestant who did take home a gold, they did not have brazil’s national anthem on hold on hand for the medal ceremony, so ferreira, unfortunately had to kind of celebrate.
In silence, it didn’t look great on the tournament, unfortunately, but once we moved on up into the uh women’s welterweight or 69 kilogram category, we saw kazakhstan’s valentina kazlova uh up against anna lisenko out of ukraine.
Now, unfortunately, this one turned into a walk over lysenko dropped out unable to box, so the gold goes uh to kazakhstan’s valentina kislova.
Now they did still march her out into the ring made her put on her head gear, go to the middle of the ring and wait for the bell, and when no opponent arrived, then they made it official.
This was a bit weird, i thought and as of the announcers at the time, just because there had been walkovers throughout this competition and none of the pomp and circumstance attached to it.
So i’m not sure if that was just because it was gold medal or what they were doing but yeah they marched her out, made her lace up put on her head gear, everything just to say: oh congratulations.
You win.
Gold goes to.
Kazakhstan.
Silver still goes to ukraine, even with the walk over and a bronze for uzbekistan and another medal for bulgaria, which brings us, brings us up to the women’s middleweight or 57 kilogram category in which we saw another kazakh fighting here.
Uh nadezhda raya bets up against naomi.
Graham fighting for the united states now rybatz has already qualified for tokyo, so that’s a name you’re.
Definitely going to see graham had the heightened range advantage in this, but raya bets was absolutely relentless and just would not let the american keeper at arm’s length.
You could clearly hear more punches being yelled from the american corner, as graham was spending a considerable amount of time, uh just working that jab in order to try to keep ryabetz on the outside round, two ribets came out quickly, eager to kind of get back right Back into graham’s personal space, you know look where you’re punching where then it was the new instruction coming out of graham’s corner as riot.
That’S continued to frustrate the american.
You know, though, definitely throwing graham off for game riots, wasn’t exactly throwing consequent uh punches of consequence, though, and that’s where the olympic channel once again dropped the feed yeah.
I should mention at this point that after the first uh broadcast stoppage that the announcers were very quick to point out that they did not control the feed but the tournament itself.
So i’m thinking this was due to covet.
They were only allowing uh the official tournament feed.
There was only one one set of cameramen in there and one official feed, so all broadcasters were working with the same feed.
So when that feed went down olympic channel lost it, we lost any all our capabilities.
Everyone else did as well so, unfortunately uh again a bit of a blunder bit of a misstep on the tournament itself, but we did rejoin the action eventually with a minute to go in the third and i’m told by the announcers that ryan betts had continued to Dictate the pace of the fight while we were gone but graham, had been landing with better shots throughout so at the end of the fight graham took her third straight strandia gold, uh medal.
Third, in a row, silver goes to kazakhstan’s raya bets uh, with a bronze going to brazil and one to ireland.
Now that finishes off for the women’s categories and bring this up to uh the men’s flyweight or 52 kilogram category, which saw another bulgarian daniel azanov, take on india’s deepak kumar kumar has been kind of one of the big stories in this tournament, as he kind of Came out of nowhere, they weren’t expecting a whole lot from this kid, and that’s probably because he’s currently unranked so he’s a fairly new fighter, whereas azanov who he was up against today.
Uh on saturday i should say, uh was ranked 17th in the world, so there is a bit of an experience gap here, but this really didn’t seem to bother the indian fighter, who was clearly the aggressor in the first half of that uh opening round azimov didn’t Uh have to box the day before i should mention, as he also had a walk over when his irish opponent was unable to uh, enter the ring.
So as and i began hunting in the second half of the first round with kumar, you know still demonstrating the superior speed and footwork, but both boxers were trading.
You know decent decent blows.
Throughout the first round, uh round, two azanov came out determined to dictate the pace of the fight, but in his aggression he was leaving himself open and kumar not being one to miss.
An opportunity was able to reverse pace and put azenov on the back foot.
For a lot of that round by the third kumar was clearly more relaxed was the more relaxed of the two fighters.
Uh looked like, he was feeling pretty confident in his first two rounds and not without reason.
Unfortunately, the judges just didn’t see it this way and at the end of the day they gave the fight to the hometown fighter, azanov silver going to india, with a bronze for kazakhstan and one for ireland.
Now i don’t know if i would have scored that fight.
This way, i i don’t think the announcers would have scored that fight.
This way this one, i think, you’re going to hear, talked about a little bit uh over the next little, while a couple of uh decisions, specifically ones going to the bulgarians that seem to uh, have been a little closer than some people might have liked, and i Think that’s one we’re gon na we haven’t heard, maybe the last of yet but moving along uh into the featherweight category, for the men saw a bulgarian surprise.
Surprise javier ibanez take on moldova’s dorian busca now round.
One was basically just a a lesson in trading body shots, while these guys try to figure each other out most around to being lost yet again to more technical difficulties uh, but according to our announcers, the second round was easily controlled uh by the bulgarian ibanez.
Who was uh quote unquote well in charge round? Three busco was trying to ramp up the pace and he ended up taking a huge uh uppercut from the bulgarian and a little later in the round.
After a pro kind of a protracted exchange, ivan has managed to knock busca down uh the way he dropped, though it looked, everybody ref included like a low blow.
Unfortunately, and ibanez was deducted a point for this.
However, it wasn’t enough to change the outcome of the fight.
Ibanez was originally from cuba, but now uh calls bulgaria.
Home went home with the gold medal silver going to uh, busca and moldova, with bronzes for kazakhstan and brazil going the wrong way here there we are so that brings us up to the men’s lightweight or 63 kilogram category.
Now this was russia’s ilia, pop-off in moldova’s alexandru, uh perishabe papava, winning his fight in the first round.
The day before this uh after the contest was called.
A couple of times should have been called in a second but ended up being called in the third couple of standing.
Eights papa and uh.
Parrot chef had actually met prior to this in 2019 and uh at a tournament in the ekaterina berg in russia, where popov uh was the victor of that fight.
So out of the gate, the moldovan uh parachev attempted switching to a southpaw stance to kind of mirror pop off, with disastrous effect.
Papa landed, a huge left early on, resulting in a standing eight count early in the first round.
The parish has very quickly reverted back to his orthodox stance.
Now.
The fight was then stopped because uh i’ve never seen this before the ref’s face, mask broke, uh one of his earpieces came off and they stopped the fight and somebody had to go get the ref of new face mask came back once they got that on.
They re uh restarted the action uh so right at the bell pop off landed and uh.
Just before the end of the round, i should say right before the belt pop-off managed to land.
Another left that wobbled the moldovan uh pop-off took one at the same time, but nowhere near as badly.
I think he was probably lucky to get out of that round.
Uh if he saved by in a kind of a save by the bell situation so round.
Two uh parachev landed a couple of stiff lefts early on in the round and papa spent most of this round.
It looked like trying to set that left up again.
He wanted.
He wanted to finish this one off with another big left and he spent most of it around trying to set up the left rather than having his head in the match and just straight boxing, and it was noticeable because parachute ended up kind of controlling.
Most of the second round come round three they’re trading, big shots right out of the gate, uh parrot chef had to have figured that you know had mostly figured out at this point how to avoid papa’s left after his initial blunder going southpaw, and he also actually Managed to bloody pop off nose as well both athletes finding another gear in the dying seconds of this particular round, but at the end of the day the gold medal did go to pop off.
The judge is obviously being impressed with those big lefts early in the first silver goes home with moldova and a bronze medal for uzbekistan and one for armenia.
Okay, i know there’s a lot.
A lot of bouts were going over here.
We’Re almost done graham we’re up to the men’s, welterweights or 69 kilogram category, where we had ukraine’s evening barabana this one’s going to get me so well, this one’s going to get me every time, every time uh barabanov yavini barabanov, and this is why, because his opponent Was uzbekistani bobo uzman batarov, so we had barana ba the random op.
I can’t do it.
I just can’t do it, man, yureni barabanov, and the uzbek bobo ooze man batter off i’ll get there.
I promise so please stay with me guys so that round one saw barabanov trying to get in close with batarov having some success with the jab and keeping him at arm’s length.
Now these guys didn’t have to go far to find each other, though, as neither one of them were too interested in dancing around the ring.
In the first round, uh barabanov uh seemed to be getting himself into a pattern of hold or clinch and then and then an uppercut as he’s coming out of the clinch uh.
Arguably, the first round went to uh the uzbek batarov.
Now the ukrainian looking visibly tired halfway through the second uh round very few hits of consequence coming from either side in the second round at least nothing that was going to really tip this contest, one way or the other.
The third started off with the flurry of body shots right right out of the right of the gate.
Um the fight becoming much more mobile at this point in time, uh by the third and with the ukrainian on the attack for the most part, and you know smiling after taking a couple of stiff jabs that uh he wasn’t really prepared for this was a close One, however, at the end of the day, the judges called this one for the uzbek batter of giving him the first two rounds.
So silver goes to ukraine’s barabanov and uh, a pair of bronzers one for moldova and one for india.
I knew we’d get there at the end, graham uh, the men’s middleweight uh was.
We were supposed to see ukraine’s alexander kurzniak and pavel sisulin out of russia.
This was another walk over, unfortunately, which uh, which this one this one was disappointing, because i really wanted to see the kishnyak fight he he put on a hell of a show in the semi-finals and i’m looking forward to see more from this kid he’s he’s fast.
He hits like a truck and he’s a smart fighter uh, but with another walk over gold automatically goes to kisnyak out of ukraine, silver to russia and yet another medal for kazakhstan and moldova going into the bronze.
The heavyweights saw russia’s uh ruslav kalejnikov against uzbekistan’s dil shebeck rusmatov.
Now the russian got here with a solid knockout in his earlier fight and that’s worth keeping in mind here.
The first uh the first round here was a lot of measuring a lot of circling.
Uh, a few decent shots being thrown from both corners, but a lot of just trying to measure each other up.
A flurry of activity at the end of the round saw roosevelt land, several heavy blows, but other than that for the most part, not a lot of consequence happening in that first round.
Second round saw roosmatov, displaying kind of greater uh ability, uh and speed agility, sort out ability and speed than the russian who was fighting.
Like you know, kolega was fighting a much more reserved round in the second round.
You know trying to pick his opportunities very carefully, but he was only landing some of the shots that he was throwing uh the pace of the fight easily being dictated by rusmotov.
At this point in time, once we got into round three kaleshnikov did land a couple of blows that seemed to stagger.
The uzbek kalashnikov knew that he really needed a big round if he wanted to take home gold and he did try with another burst of energy.
Late in the third round, he did manage to land a few solid blows, but at the end of the day it was just another too little too late, uh with the decision at the end going gold to uzbekistan, silver for russia and abroad for armenia and ukraine.
Oh sorry, that was the uh men’s light heavy, not the heavyweights.
My apologies, because this is the men’s.
Heavy uh saw the armenian eric minassian against once again, bulgaria’s radislav pandalev five bulgarians in this one here so round.
One pandelov was the was the aggressor early on with manasseh and managing to slip.
A couple of jabs through the bulgarians defenses but uh pantolev, is the faster of these two fighters and, as such, i kind of expected to see more aggression out of manasseh in early on in this fight uh, because he doesn’t have the same kind of conditioning as Pandelev, so i would have expected to see him wanting to score score points early on and trying to stagger, if not take his opponent out as quickly as he could.
Uh manasseh did manage to land several big blows just before uh the fight was paused to address a shoelace that had come undone just uh before the end of the first round, two pandalev taking the armenian to the ropes with a flurry of body shots early on Manasseh encountered with several uppercuts uh with uh.
You know at one point had pandel of looking like he was in trouble trading headshots at the end of the round.
Uh pandora was lucky to get out of this one uh he saved by the bell big time as he was thrown a little uns unsteady on his feet.
By the end of the second round, three uh saw minassian landing an uppercut right after the bell and uh pandora.
You know smiled it off big, grin on his face um.
Both these guys clearly tired and technique.
Clearly starting to fail.
This fight started looking pretty scrappy at this point in time, um, with a minute 20 left to go pandalev rio managed to reopen a cut on manassian’s forehead uh that menacing had from an earlier bout uh, something earlier in the tournament uh at this point, menacing is Bleeding freely, but the ref uh, just let them go on you know both boxers uh pulled out all the stops and started, throwing quote unquote hell for leather according to one of the announcers uh.
No surprise here, uh the bulgarians went five for five for gold medals.
Today, every uh every fighter that they entered into a gold medal match from bulgaria took home a gold medal today, silver going to monassian out of armenia, with with bronze being split by georgia and france.
Finally, bringing us up to the final bout of the day.
Uh was the men’s.
Super heavyweight saw ukraine’s uh sotni rogovna.
Oh sorry, rogava against uzbekistan’s bokodir yelalov.
Now ragovna is actually a former muay thai kickboxer and he was a world champion in muay thai a couple of times over.
I believe, before switching over to the queensberry rules, uh the uzbek in this one yellowlove had a considerable height advantage and he was happy to try to keep uh on the outside, which he was able to do pretty consistently throughout that first round, just with his jab.
Getting into the second round still having a hard time trying to figure out how to get inside of uh, yellow, loves, reach and uh, yellow love landing several good jabs.
Once we got around to the third rogava, did manage briefly to get in close enough to land.
A few uh good body shots uh.
He did miss an opportunity, though, and uh yellow love stumbled about two minutes into the third and but rogawa.
Just wasn’t fast enough to get some shots in, because uh yellow caught found himself on the back foot and just he tripped over his own feet and it was.
It would have been a perfect opportunity.
But ragav just was not quick enough to take advantage of that.
In the final minute, in an attempt to kind of draw, yellow love in uh, ragava could be heard.
You know taunting and yelling at him.
Saying like give me more is that all you’ve got like let’s go here, arms out.
Let’S, let’s do this thing and you know it very.
Nearly worked as yellow love did start to look a little annoyed and was starting to get a little bit sloppy uh.
But once again too little too late, uh uzbekistan’s, yellow love, taking gold medal, silver going to ukraine and a bronze for bulgaria and one for armenia.
So the uh.
The bulgarians took home 5 out of 13 uh gold medals to on saturday, and the uzbeks took home.
Three of them, so eight of them going to two countries out of that tournament and some names that we’re definitely gon na have to look out for uh in the upcoming uh in the upcoming tokyo games great great morning, slash early afternoon of boxing and uh, i Enjoyed it, i think you caught a few of the bouts yourself.
Didn’T you well, i’m gon na try to catch a few uh.
I’M definitely curious to see how the bulgarians will fare in tokyo.
I mean you normally see the americans, the cubans uh.
I thought bulgarians well, one of the bulgarian uh golds today was a cuban technically but uh yeah.
Let’S see what you mean, what you mean so we’ll see how it goes um i mean this certainly shed light on other nations, quite frankly, and the the caliber of these fighters.
So it’s good to hear it speaks to the strength of like of the bulgarians uh boxing program in general, really at the end of the day, because these these are, you know we had wimp golds for the women we had golds for the men and spread out Across a lot of their many weight categories here, so it really speaks to the strength of what they’re doing in bulgaria right now for their amateur boxers, yep and out of all the.
How does does the use max, i might add, both of them taking home, multiple bronzes and silvers as well? I i was hoping our boy from india.
Kumar uh would have gotten it again.
Go back and watch that fight uh there’ll, be a few people saying that he should have got his gold yeah.
I’M sure there was definitely a bit of grumbling going on that was being given to the bulgarians as they did go five for five, and at least a couple of those it was close, is probably the most diplomatic way we can uh.
We can put that.
I mean there they were well-matched fights they they were.
There was no obvious walkaways where we’re going hang on.
How did you see that score happening, but uh some close ones? That could have gone the other way without too much argument? I think, but you know you know you’re not at ringside and we were stuck with the one camera feed and what they were willing to give us so well, thanks very much.
I appreciate it.
That’S an excellent breakdown and analysis of the uh.
The final round of that tournament uh a tournament that isn’t really truly well publicized, i suppose, unless you’re from either eastern europe uh.
But i mean having been attended by americans and brazilians the irish were there yeah.
It does attract an awful lot of attention among the amateur community, so it is well respected, obviously, and a good lead up to the tokyo olympics without that, as i’m sure many more tournaments will be held now, uh in in even in light of covet uh.
Obviously, with this one going off successfully despite the occasional technical difficulty good stuff, i mean really good stuff.
So thank you very much for watching and now analyzing for us.
Well, on that covered front row, we do have one small update, just on a story that we were talking about a couple of days ago, out of zimbabwe uh, where the uh we saw some red tape actually being cut and the uh olympic committee there putting up The money to send four potential uh olympic contenders to three tournaments over the course of the next several up to going up till may, i believe, uh.
The first of those tournaments was just getting underway and unfortunately, two of their boxers are unable to attend.
The first turn, which i believe is in mozambique because they have tested positive for covet 19.
, so we may have just seen a couple and probably their biggest uh contender or what they were hoping was gon na be uh.
Their biggest contender is unable to make this tournament as he’s tested, uh positive for covet 19.
.
Both boxers who have tested positive, are asymptomatic in good health, well, not in good health, obviously, but uh feeling no uh no drain from it.
So they’re, obviously monitoring their health.
Really closely at this point in time and hoping that they’re gon na be able to make up some points in the following two tournaments that’ll be coming up over the next couple of months right.
Well, thanks very much for the update and uh look forward to hearing me tomorrow.
Uh thank you for the listenership out there and leadership for tuning in remember to like share subscribe and if you are subscribing make sure you ring that bell for notifications again.
Thank you.
Christian for all the hard work and we’ll see you tomorrow, we’ll talk to you tomorrow, yep
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