By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Eumir Marcial’s ultimate dream of winning an Olympic gold medal will have to wait once again after dropping his opening bout in the ongoing Paris Olympics men’s boxing event on July 31, 2024.
The former Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist suffered a Round of 16 loss at the hands of Uzbekistan’s Turabek Khabibullaev in the men’s 80kg category, halting his Paris Olympics campaign in the early phase of the tournament.
After the action-packed three-round clash between the Filipino and the Uzbekistan representative, it was the younger Khabibullaev who bagged the victory, scoring a unanimous 5-0 decision win over Marcial.
The same with his previous Olympic fights in Tokyo, Marcial once again started slow in the first round and was waiting for his opponent to initiate the action and throw the first combination.
Little did Marcial know that the 20-year-old Khabibullaev had a high usage rate of his jabs and was a busy fighter, keeping his hands moving and punching when the Filipino stood still in the middle of the ring.
Khabibullaev circled around the ring and kept his hands up, throwing more jabs while neutralizing Marcial’s power with his snappy straights and efficient right punches.
As a result, all five of the judges scored the first round in favor of Khabibullaev, putting the pressure on Marcial to clinch a reverse sweep in the last two frames.
However, Marcial still failed to measure his desired hitting distance as the flurry of jabs that Khabibullaev sent disrupted his plans of moving forward.
Whenever Marcial threw his huge right hook, Khabibullaev saw that coming and flinched away from the close distance that the Filipino preferred.
Now down in the scorecards 2-0, Marcial desperately needed a knockout in the third to win the fight but Khabibullaev stayed away from the ropes and just threw jabs in the whole three-minute frame.
Despite a slight advantage given to Marcial in the third, it still wasn’t enough to convince the judges of a 50-50 decision, rewarding the victory to Khabibullaev who will march to the next round of the Paris Olympics.
