Five-star Jordan take Olympic qualifiers by storm

AMMAN — Mohammad Al Wadi secured a storming quarter-final win at a raucous Prince Hamzeh Hall to become the fifth Jordanian boxer to book a place at this summer Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games through the Asian/Oceanian qualifying event being held in Amman until Wednesday, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service. 

With a last four place good enough to secure Olympic qualification, Wadi overturned a first round deficit to win the judges’ decision against Korea’s Sangmyeong-ham, and join teammates, Hussein and Zeyad Ishaish, Odai Al Hindawi and Obada Al Kesbeh on the plane to Japan this summer.

“I have worked solidly for four years for this,” he said. “I haven’t seen my family for a month because we have all trained so hard for our Olympic dream. This is it now. I want to go on and win a gold medal. The crowd was amazing. Thank you to everyone for coming out to see me. I have made you proud I hope.”

Wadi’s performance has earned him a Featherweight 57kg semifinal date with Vietnam’s big hitting Van Duong Nguyen on Tuesday.

Kesbeh faced Tajikistan’s Bakhodur Usmonov, the man who beat him in last year’s Asian Championship final, but launched a blistering attack from the first bell, and sustained his aggression throughout to land a unanimous verdict from the five judges.

“I can’t tell you how much this means to me to reach my second Olympics,” said the 2016 Rio Olympian, who joins brothers Hussein and Zeyad Ishaish and Odai Hindawi on the plane to Tokyo. “I learned a lot from last year’s final against him and kept to the plan that we made to beat him. That is four of us for Tokyo now. We have the support of His Majesty King Abdullah and the Royal family so this win comes from my heart for all of Jordan.”

His semifinal opponent on Tuesday will be fourth seed Zakir Safiullin after the Kazakh beat Ashkan Rezaei, of Iran.

At the other end of the 63kg draw, third seed Chinzorig Baatarsukh, of Mongolia, saw off world bronze medallist, Manish Kaushik, of India, and will next meet China’s Qiong Maimaititu who beat Commonwealth Games gold medallist Harrison Garside, of Australia, with a split decision.

Another big story of the day came in the opening bout of the morning session when the women’s Featherweight 57kg World Champion and World No.1, Nesthy Petecio, was beaten by Sena Irie, a native of this summer’s Olympic host city Tokyo.

Following a brilliant fight, the 19-year-old Japanese fighter won on a split decision and was understandably elated.

“I have two reasons to be happy because I not only beat the world No 1, I also booked a place in the Olympics in my Tokyo home,” she said. “We fought at the world championships last year and I suffered from her power, but today I felt much stronger!”

She will next fight Korea’s Aeji Im who booked her semifinal passage and Olympic place with a win over India’s Sakshi Chaudhary.

The other 57kg weight semifinal will see Australia’s Skye Nicolson, seeded three, fight second seeded Yu-Ting Lin, of Chinese Taipei, after they overcame Bolortuul Tumurkhuyag, of Mongolia, and Junhua Yin, of China, respectively.

World No. 1 Amit Panghal, of India, survived a tough fight with Carlo Paalam, of The Philippines, to advance to the semifinals of the men’s Flyweight 52kg category. He will come up against Jiangun Hu, of China, who stunned fourth seed Saken Bibossinov, of Kazakhstan, to book his Olympic ticket.

The other two boxers to book their passage to Tokyo 2020 by reaching the semifinals were Australia’s Alex Winwood and reigning Olympic and World Champion, Shakhobdin Zoirov, of Uzbekistan.