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11/16/2007 Archived Entry: "China's Boxing: One Breakthrough After Another"
China's Boxing: One Breakthrough After Another
By Zhenyu Li
The sleeping Eastern Dragon is now awakening, with one breakthrough in boxing after another.
In the 2004 Athens Olympics, there were five Chinese boxers qualified to compete in boxing. Shiming Zou was the only boxer to win a medal and end China's Olympic boxing medal drought by capturing one bronze; apart from him was a boxer in the 81kg division who qualified for the quarterfinal.
In the 2005 World Boxing Championships, Shiming Zou was crowned the 48kg champion and grabbed the first world amateur boxing gold medal for China, with three other compatriots making it to the last eight.
Two years later, at the recently concluded World Boxing Championships in Chicago, China reaped one gold, four bronze and seven "Olympic tickets," with nine out of eleven participants cruising to the eighth-finals and seven to the quarterfinals.
As host nation for the 2008 Olympic Games, China is permitted to have six wildcard entries from the world championships. However, the Oriental giant stood proudly in Chicago as it secured seven passes without a single free ride. This was the most among all the other Asian countries. Next in line is the longtime Asian boxing powerhouse, Thailand, with five. Russia concluded with the most - nine qualifiers while America ended up with six.
Despite the absence of Cuba, a dominating force in the world of amateur boxing, the competition in Chicago was by no means gentle. Both South Korea and Kyrgyzstan, the two Asian nations with a rich boxing tradition, failed to qualify a single fighter. Only 23 out of 80 Asian fighters qualified to participate in Beijing's upcoming Olympic games.
Shiming Zou, the reigning champion, cruised to the final with ease and defended his belt with the amazing scores of 15-3,30-13,23-6,22-8,21-1 and 17-3. In his six bouts, he outscored his opponents by 20 points in two fights and surpassed the other four with at least 12 in points. Moreover, he hardly lost a round in the entire tournament. That's devastating; that's crushing; that's overwhelming. His opponent almost couldn't touch him. They were fighting a ghost.
While Shiming Zou is a surefire hot favorite in next year's Beijing Olympics, China appears ready to dominate these Olympic games, as in Chicago, it reaped four bronze medals in four divisions: featherweight, middleweight, heavyweight and super heavyweight. Their medal total of five puts China right behind the boxing Titan, Russia, who captured the most at the 14th World Boxing Championships.
China has broken the silence and is out to make a noise in the future world of boxing.
Writer's Remarks:
Although China's boxing had made decent improvements since officially returning to validity in March 1986, it was not until Shiming Zou bagged three medals in a row--that is the silver medal in the 2003 World Boxing Championships, the bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics and the gold medal in the 2005 World Boxing Championships--did the Asian giant really catch the world's attention in the boxing community. In a world that had been dominated by the west for over several decades, it was truly a historic breakthrough for Chinese boxers to make a dent on the world stage.
Admittedly, the talent pool of Chinese boxers was lacking, with Zou playing the solo and the others lagging far behind. The second best the Chinese achieved in the 2005 World Boxing Championships was two boxers entering the quarterfinal.
The talent-sparse predicament ended in Doha one year after when China bagged five boxing medals in the 2006 Asian Games.
With two golds and three bronzes, China exceeded the mighty Manny Pacquiao's home country of the Philippines with one more bronze medal advantage. Aside from Shiming Zou winning a gold in the 48kg division, Qing Hu added another gold medal in the 60kg class. Bo Yang, Nati Ha and Jianting Zhang were the other three Chinese counterparts who captured the three bronzes, respectively in the 51kg, 69kg and 75kg division.
With boxing powerhouses such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in line, China still secured five medals from five separate weight classes, indicating that the ancient nation had integrally reached a whole new level in boxing.
For China, the freshly concluded World Boxing Championships is merely a rehearsal before the grand pageant. The Asian Giant is in place to make a big splash next year in Beijing!
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Zhenyu Li is the columnist for People's Daily online and a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO). He can be reached at zhenyuli_cn@sina.com
