Ilongga boxer Irish Magno ends Olympic campaign in Round of 16

Irish Magno’s performance wasn’t enough to advance to the quarterfinals (Ueslie Marcelino/Reuters)

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Ilongga boxer Irish Magno is now out of contention for the Tokyo Olympics’ Women’s Flyweight division after suffering defeat at the hands of Jutamas Jitpong of Thailand in the Round of 16 stage.

Although Magno was the aggressor in the fight, Jitpong’s reach advantage played a huge part in her victory as she just connected on more punches.

In the three rounds of the fight, Magno wasn’t able to find and cut the distance to land more punches and negate the reach factor that the Thai had.

The native of Janiuay, Iloilo came out with a sense of urgency in the second round and went after Jitpong and managed to land heavy combinations.

Magno needed a huge third round to take control of the scorecards but Jitpong chose to play safe and used her reach advantage again to throw more effective jabs.

All five of the judges scored the bout in favor of Jitpong who lost two years ago to Magno during the Southeast Asian Games.

With the victory, Jitpong is now all set to clash with Buse Naz Cakiroglu of Turkey in the women’s flyweight quarterfinals.