AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 10
IABA. IOC. Stranja, Bulgaria 72nd International Boxing Tournament update, plus Zimbabwe. Governing bodies, and Olympic standards. 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
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Transcribed:
Hello talking fight fans around the world, welcome once again to another exciting episode of the olympics, featuring christian from the friday night panel, and what have you got for us today? Well, graham uh, sorry, some technicals there, since we talked a little bit yesterday about what’s going on in the state down in the states, and we were wondering what tournaments, if any, are actually happening down there.
So i had a bit of a look this morning.
I was just based on what we were talking about yesterday and with coveted precautions and restrictions varying pretty wildly across the continental u.
s, obviously in spots, where we’re seeing higher numbers we’re not seeing large events planned anytime in the near future.
However, that’s not to say that uh boxing has been sleeping in the u.
s.
We spoke just, i believe, last friday, with uh montreal montal griffin, for example, on the friday night panel who came to us, live from his gym, where we could hear in the background.
One of his boxers rhythmically working a speed bag, and that was in chicago, so we know that, depending on where you’re training and fighting there are still some opportunities to be trading leather in one of our yeah in one of our first episodes.
Graham, we spoke a little bit about how to get from here on the couch to the podium, and we did so in very generic terms.
But it’s worth remembering uh that the way to make it to the olympics is to start off at tournaments at the local level, get 11 bouts under your under your belt.
So you can qualify as an open boxer and then you start climbing the ladder attend as many local, regional, uh, local, regional, finally, national tournaments as possible to try to get on that metal stand.
That being said, even with the ongoing pandemic, if you uh went to team usa’s website right now and search for sanctioned boxing events, you’re going to find that events and tournaments are being scheduled and held pretty much every single weekend between now and the games, usually, several Being held in different cities uh in different states, at the same time, however, as far as large national tournaments go, there currently isn’t anything scheduled to be held until the golden gloves tournament, which is uh supposed to be held in august in texas.
Now that’s at the local level, when i say local, meaning the states only in this particular case, but that doesn’t mean that athletes, as we know, are confined to boxing.
Only at home team usa did send a delegation to the strania cup this year.
Uh of the 30 nations competing uh this year, only two teams were actually registered from the americas.
That’S the team from the us, as well as a team from brazil.
So you know things are alive and well things are still moving, but nothing.
Nothing huge uh! Coming up anytime soon so shifting gears and looking a little bit back to stranding a cup, i want to do a bit of a round up of uh day three here and the latest so uh, the women’s lightweight in the 60 kilogram category.
It’S a fantastic category! At strange memorial uh with several stars in the lineup finland’s rio 2016 olympic games, broad medalist, amira uh putconan, was almost perfect at the international stage and met with another veteran rival.
Switzerland’S sandra bruger on day three pacquiao can landed several strong shots from each of the attacking position and advanced to the last eight uh, along with brazil’s defending aiba women’s world champion beatrice ferreira.
Moldova’S dimitri gallaght was a silver medalist at the minsk 2013 european boxing championships and eight years after his career highlight he proved his very best in the men’s welterweight.
Our 69 kilogram category in sofia, the 29 year old moldovan, was highly confident against bulgaria’s young vesnav kirkhof and won all three of his rounds in each scorecard.
Gala got advanced to the semi-final event and we’ll be meeting with ukraine’s powerful yavini barbanov.
In the final four i apologize, we got a lot of names in this one, and most of them are unpronounceable.
For me, ukraine’s top star alexander kirsniak had more than 500 contests during his career and he’s one of the biggest names uh fighting at so at the strania memorial tournament.
This year, ukraine’s pride was the aiba world championship and eubc european championship back in 2017.
uh.
Well, he’s also a title holder in bulgaria’s biggest international event.
Uh kirzneak is has got a fabulous conditioning really and has demonstrated that against turkey, sarah gular launching more than 40 attacks per round during the during the bat about uh.
The ukrainian middleweight boxer won the contest unanimously and will be boxing in the last four, with moldova’s andre remain uzbekistan’s assad, kuja muy, dink hujev, i said kuja muy dinkujev.
I can apologize for the pronunciations on these uh he’s only gon na be turning 20.
This year later this year, but he’s already a strong boxer who has the potential to eliminate brazil’s aipa world championship, quarter finalist wanderson olivieri at the lightweight uh that 63 kilogram category, he is a virtuoso he’s been described as a virtuoso, footwork, uh and patient style, and Where he was able to deliver clear success, uh his amazing teammates as well uh bobo usman bartrov, also moved forward in the 69 category uh the defending aibi world champion bakoder jalov in the 91 category, uh won his contest by a large margin of difference on day.
Three as well, so it’s a bit of uh a wrap up of what’s going on and we’re gon na get a little bit more as we get into the semifinals, and this starts tearing down.
We can get a little further into each of these uh actual fighters who they are and what they’ve been doing.
Uh they’ll be fighting again tomorrow for the semi-finals and then obviously finals are gon na be happening on saturday, so you and i may have to have a short conversation on saturday just to uh just so we keep current graham.
But that’s that’s.
What’S uh the big wrap up from day three over at uh in sofia and bulgaria, and a little bit about what’s what’s going on in the us at the moment? Awesome you answered my questions.
That’S great.
I tried i tried, i got nothing for you, you didn’t expect me to answer your question.
You rounded up the americas on a regional level.
Tournaments are underway, amateurs are you know, maintaining their levels of practice and discipline.
Great strange is going forward brought us up to speed on what’s happening over there uh.
As we know, asia, asia oceana has already presented their qualifiers.
I mean the only the only continent.
That’S really up in the air.
Really is africa, which is kind of confusing, but anyway uh? It’S great they’ve already had their qualifiers as well.
Africa has already had their qualifiers as well.
It’S just these uh, these larger regional tournaments, where people are trying to get those world rankings up that we’ve been discussing in an attempt to you, know the latch onto one of those 53 spots, uh that’s being allocated across the world for uh.
That would have been decided during the paris world tournament in june.
Had it not been canceled right so, even though sorry, even those guys, even those boxers from nigeria who would have qualified, aren’t going to go, are there spaces available from other countries within africa, then to take those spaces? Well, no, because there aren’t necessarily spaces allocated by country, you still have to qualify.
So, for example, you know here in canada if we had really poor showings at the americas tournament and none of our boxers were of a world rank.
We may not have anyone fighting at uh at tokyo.
That’S not going to be the case, of course, but it does happen where, where sometimes we’ll find uh, you know this is the first time since 19 was in 1960 that the nigerians aren’t going to be there and that’s due to red tape.
At the end of the day, but there weren’t already nigerian slots that had been set aside for them, they still had to have each one of their fighters qualify in each of their respective weight classes in order to send someone.
Yes, that’s what i’m saying you? The qualifiers had taken place for the african continent yeah those took place in senegal last year, of which the nigerians surely would have had a team – oh probably yeah, so yeah they had a team.
They just did the team didn’t get to go.
Would they have qualified almost definitely so i’m just curious, so they just don’t enter into any follow-up competition they’re just out they would have to have fighters who are already ranked pretty close to the top in the in.
In world rankings, in order to snag one of those uh positions, that’s being allocated instead of the world paris tournament, that’s been cancelled, so if they don’t have someone who’s already, you know this far from already qualifying for one of those stops going to one of these Regional regional tournaments won’t necessarily get them up to the level that they need to be so.
We talked a little bit yesterday about uh several boxers out of zimbabwe, who are going to be uh attending regionals in in several like three three separate regionals uh over between now and may, and now these boxers, who are attending they’re, hoping to get one of those Spots, so they already the people they’re sending already would have had to have been ranked at a certain level to have any hope, uh of qualifying for one of those olympic spots at this point correct so for the nigerians, if they didn’t have someone who’s already ranked That high, then it doesn’t make sense to send them to these other qualifying tournaments and hoping of getting those rankings up.
But this is the light bulb that went off on my head here, i’m just thinking.
Potentially, the nigerians did have sufficiently ranked boxers that now other african countries know that are not going so.
Therefore, zimbabwe’s boxers can probably think wait a second the nigerians aren’t going.
Maybe that gives us a better chance.
So therefore, we’re going to send our guys, who might not have been able to compete against the nigerians.
I got to think that nigerians were top ranked.
Oh well, i mean they’ve been consistent again since 1960.
They have, they have been attending the games and qualifying for the games consistently and they do have a larger pool of boxers to pull from in a more developed system than you’re going to see in some other african nations for sure.
But that being said, if they do have boxers – and we won’t know everything until may – when it’s all announced at the end of may uh right around when the actual tournament would have taken place, what all this rankings are going to turn into and who’s going to Be on the final card, but there’s always a possibility.
If the nigerians do have someone who’s ranked that highly already, then they could be still sending someone to the olympics based on rankings alone, but if they weren’t.
If this is what i’m saying, if they didn’t have someone who was already that high, then it really doesn’t matter because it’s not like you know the nigerians aren’t going to be there.
That’S our chance to slide in.
They didn’t make it if they don’t have up someone who’s based solely on their rankings, and it’s not that they had some kind of advantage or there’s no real advantage to other boxers from the region.
For the nigerians not to show up at least none that i can put together, okay, here’s my understanding.
I thought the continental qualifiers having been decided across asia, oceana and africa.
I thought a finite number of positions within the olympics therefore had been decided and allocated to those continents or groupings of countries absolutely, and we are definitely going to be seeing some people fighting who may not have been, who may not have qualified.
If the nigerians had been able to make the trip to the qualifier in senegal, yes, and so i was just kind of curious whether any country can fill those vacant positions.
If there were vacant positions, uh left well, so the the vacant positions that uh, because during the qualifier those positions have all been taken care of now would some of those positions have been filled by nigerians? Had nigeria made that trip almost definitely uh, but the fact that they weren’t there doesn’t mean that there’s now vacant spots, so each one of the regions uh as set up by the americas, asia, oceana, africa and europe – are going to be receiving a set number.
Each of those uh those qualifying positions that have been allocated based on ranking now, so it’s not just going world ranking from the very top we’re going to be giving out of those 53.
You know it’s going to be divided evenly or as evenly as you can.
An odd number but they’ll be developed divided evenly across the different regions, so there will be a set number of them that are allocated for africa so based on your world ranking and the fact that you’re in africa that would be.
That would be how that’s chosen, based on your world, ranking and you’re fighting out of europe.
Then you would get one of the european ones, so you might see people who have a slightly lower world ranking than necessarily you know, picking up, say an asia oceana spot than someone who picked one up in you know based on their world, ranking out of the Americas, competition – or you know africa versus europe.
It really doesn’t matter because it’s going to be based on your overall rankings, but also your region at the same time does that make sense.
Uh it’s getting a little complicated for me might be my age, okay, but i’m thinking uh the olympics invites countries around the world to participate on a global level.
Okay, yes, to make it easy, they subdivided the world into continents or groupings of countries geographically, based the knowing that not every country can possibly supply a top rank.
Otherwise you get that eddie, the eagle scenario or some fella who wants to put on a pair of boxing mitts and go fight, those hearts content, but that’s not fair to the other.
Boxers who’ve been training like crazy and really deserve a shot.
So balancing off.
If you will the two equations of want and desire and who’s truly deserving of a piece of the pie, uh and a potential uh spot on the podium, the ioc says: okay in order to go to the olympics, you need to qualify, but because all these qualifiers Have been either postponed or will not happen, they’re, leaving it up to the regions to fill those spots.
Am i correct? No, i’m understanding that so two of the two of the qualifier events are we’re.
At this point.
We’Re still focused on that they are going to happen, it’s just where and when is a little up in the air for the americas, as well as the the european one actually was announced today that a top runner, we may need to get andrew back on here.
Again, because uh one of the top contenders now to hold the rescheduled european qualifier, is currently budapest, possibly god, possibly due to their success on the on the recent uh tournament that they held.
But right now they are one of the front runners to possibly hold that rescheduled tournament, so we’ll, but again we’ll get into that later on uh or another day.
So right now, let’s just assume that budapest is going to happen and that uh buenos aires is going to happen.
We’Re going to have those two other qualifiers.
That’S still going to leave 53 spots open for the olympics right.
Those 53 spots are going to be divided among four regions and it’ll be your top qualify.
Your top-ranked boxers in your region will get those spots so x amount goes to europe.
The top boxers ranked in europe will get those spots x amount go to africa.
The top ranked boxers who have not currently qualified will get those spots same with the americas same with asia oceania.
So it’s all going to come down to whoever hasn’t qualified, but is at the top of their game.
If you’ve already got a qualification because you won that qualification in one of the qualifiers that either already has happened or will be happening, then that takes precedent.
You are you’ve already qualified.
You’Ve got your olympics, it’s for the spot, people who haven’t who’s at the very top who hasn’t qualified yet and that’s who’s going to get those births all right got it.
That brings us back to the whole.
Is this a democratic way to do things again, because then that, because that speaks to your earlier point, this has been one of the concerns is: is this an actual, fair and democratic way to do things, because you may have a lot of really great top-ranked boxers In one region, but only these guys get to go only the top two of those guys get to go.
And then you have much lower ranked boxers on a world level who, in a different region, who also get to go to the same tournament because they live in that region as opposed to the fact that they’re, just better than these other boxers right hard to say And that’s where that world tournament kind of comes in because we’ve already gone through the regionals and i know yeah, i’m still one of the best in the world.
Let’S get out there, let’s figure this out so now yeah you do.
You might see some boxers who wouldn’t have otherwise qualified for the olympics based on a world ranking who might actually get a trip now because of it, and some people who might have done well all right at that world tournament are going to get sidelined because they’re Just not high enough in their specific region right, yes, it is complicated, but here’s my bottom line, i i do trust that the best of the best will compete at the olympics in july in tokyo.
In boxing all right fingers crossed yeah yeah, i’m i’m confident um.
It’S it’s just all these uh hurdles more or less that are confusing, but confusing for a reason they want to find out.
Who is the best among the best uh, given these parameters from around? That’S why i spend my mornings reading through all this nonsense, so that uh we can try to figure out how how it is they’re actually figuring this out, or at least claiming that they’ve figured these things out right right.
Excellent thanks very much! I appreciate all the hard work you’re doing and i’m sure our viewers do as well um.
Having said that, uh remember like share subscribe and if you’re subscribing remember to ring that bell, get the notifications and we’ll see you tomorrow, talk to you tomorrow.
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