Controversial Loss For Ghana
LIGHT heavyweight Samir Bastie became the fifth casualty in Ghana's six-team boxing contingent to the Beijing Olympics, as he narrowly crashed out 7-9 to Brazil's Athens Olympic silver medalist, Silver Washington.
Yesterday's loss leaves only one boxer — bantamweight Manyo Plange — with a fighting chance of grabbing any medal for Ghana in boxing — and salvaging some pride for the nation's much-adored sport.
Defeat to Bastie, skipper of the Black Bombers, was really unexpected — not to a Brazilian — if anything at all.
He had been extremely inspiring in previous fights in the run-up to the Olympics, especially against Nigeria's Izobo Dauda who he crushed ruthlessly in round three at the Beijing Workers Gymnasium last Monday.
The Brazil corner was aware of the Ghanaian's terror in the ring and predictably cartwheeled in celebration when the bell sounded for the end of the heart-thumping session that left Silva's feet begging for respite.
The knock-out-seeking Bastie got off to a bad patch in the opening round which Silva won 4-1, but opened an artillery of ferocious punches with many going wild.
Those which landed well at the scoring area were amazingly not registered to the chagrin of the Chinese fans who, from day one, have not failed to advertise their support for Ghana.
Nevertheless, none could take anything away from Silva.
He was very timely with his punches and penetrated when Baste was furiously chasing the killer blows.
His strong chin and good covering might homealso helped him a lot.In the third and final rounds, however, the Brazilian Olympic medalist was almost reduced to a patch-work side as the punches relentlessly rained on him — his feet glaringly showing signs of weakness.
But he doggedly refused to cave him. His corner men might have told him to survive the onslaughts and get the result.
And, he got it — thus, shrinking the hopes of Ghana for a medal — and leaving Manyo Plange as the lone-ranger in the hunt for a silverware in what is speedily turning out to be a calamitous Beijing campaign.
Plange authoritatively dominated and outpointed his Philippino opponent 7-3 to qualify for the next stage of the competition on Wednesday.
He takes to the ring on Saturday, hoping to repeat the five-star peformance that earned him a lot of plaudits among Chinese fans and the world at large.
But the sleek bantamweight would have to win his next two fights to zoom into the medal zone.
Plange told the Times Sports at the team's camp that the win over the Philippino has done a lot of inspiration to him "and I hope to build on it to drive straight to the final."