Petecio In Quarters; Paalam Advances

Boxing continues to keep alive the medal hopes of Team Philippines in the XXXII Olympiad. In two nerve-wracking bouts that could have gone either way if not for strong, aggressive finishes, featherweight Nesthy Petecio and flyweight Carlo Paalam impressed the judges just enough in carving up hard-earned split decisions yesteday and moving up closer to the medal rounds at the Kokugikan Arena.

- Tito S. Talao

The No. 2 ranked Petecio, barely breaking 5-foot-4, erupted in jubilation at the announcement of her 3-2 triumph over Chinese-Taipei’s Lin Yu-Ting, the top seed in the 5457 kg division who towers over the feisty Filipina at 5-foot-8.

The win sent Petecio to the quarterfinals on Wednesday against Columbia’s Yeni Marcela Arias Castaneda, who defeated Bulgaria’s Stanimira Nikolaeva Petrova 3-2 in the succeeding bout.

Though dwarfed by her opponent, the switch-punching Petecio took the first round 4-1 on the strength of crafty left-right combinations that threw the Taiwanese world No. 1 off-balanced and tentative in her punches.

But Lin, whom Petecio had never fought before, started to throw punches in volume and succeeded in levelling the score heading to the critical third round.

“Nakaw-nakaw lang po ako ng suntok nong huli at iningatan ko na tamaan ako ng solid,” said Petecio, who gained the nod of the judges with a closing flurry of combinations before floating out of reach.