Boxer one bout from gold
35 minutes ago
Ireland's only Olympic gold medal was within reach after boxer Kenneth Egan booked his place in the final.
More than 80 supporters crammed into the Egan terraced home in west Dublin to watch the light heavyweight champion secure his spot in Sunday's bout in Beijing.
Egan, who was almost untouchable in the ring, winning the bout 10-3, will fight Zhang Xiaoping for gold in the Workers' Gymnasium.
Chinese "dark horse" Zhang Xiaoping embraces unexpected victory, rushes into final
BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese light heavyweight (81kg) Zhang Xiaoping exceeded people's expectation on Friday night by beating world championship bronze medalist Kazakh Yerkebulan Shynaliyev by small points and rushed into the final as a dark horse, securing at least a silver medal for China.
Both boxers were pretty cautious throughout the match, using many tentative and fake attacks to distract each other. Facing the stronger opponent, Zhang, ranking 9th at last year's world championships, didn't show fear or timidness, nor was he too aggressive. Amid the boisterous cheering from the fully-packed audience, Zhang patiently ploughed around, looking for the "enemy's" rips and quickly attacking them.
Zhang and Shynaliyev fought in similar style and they tied each other throughout the bout with 4-4. When the referee announced Zhang's victory by small points, Zhang jumped in ecstasy and ran like mad around the arena.
After the match, Zhang told Xinhua that he fully performed himself at this fight, both psychologically, strategically and physically. "I used the correct strategy," Zhang said, "which is to stick to the points with my opponent during the first two rounds and not to be lagged behind, then to attack the opponent's weakness while his power was waning at the latter two rounds."
With this victory, Zhang said he's more than confident to win a gold medal. He'll face Irish Kenny Egan at his last bout, who easily defeated Briton Tony Jeffries 10-3 before Zhang's fight.
Zhang's coach Chao Lu said Zhang was fully prepared before the match, and he kept calm and steady throughout the fight, which was key to victory.
Zhang showed himself as the dark horse of this tournament, defeating four "enemies" during his four bouts, including world championship silver medalist Russian Artur Beterbiev.
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35 minutes ago
Ireland's only Olympic gold medal was within reach after boxer Kenneth Egan booked his place in the final.
More than 80 supporters crammed into the Egan terraced home in west Dublin to watch the light heavyweight champion secure his spot in Sunday's bout in Beijing.
Egan, who was almost untouchable in the ring, winning the bout 10-3, will fight Zhang Xiaoping for gold in the Workers' Gymnasium.
Chinese "dark horse" Zhang Xiaoping embraces unexpected victory, rushes into final
BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese light heavyweight (81kg) Zhang Xiaoping exceeded people's expectation on Friday night by beating world championship bronze medalist Kazakh Yerkebulan Shynaliyev by small points and rushed into the final as a dark horse, securing at least a silver medal for China.
Both boxers were pretty cautious throughout the match, using many tentative and fake attacks to distract each other. Facing the stronger opponent, Zhang, ranking 9th at last year's world championships, didn't show fear or timidness, nor was he too aggressive. Amid the boisterous cheering from the fully-packed audience, Zhang patiently ploughed around, looking for the "enemy's" rips and quickly attacking them.
Zhang and Shynaliyev fought in similar style and they tied each other throughout the bout with 4-4. When the referee announced Zhang's victory by small points, Zhang jumped in ecstasy and ran like mad around the arena.
After the match, Zhang told Xinhua that he fully performed himself at this fight, both psychologically, strategically and physically. "I used the correct strategy," Zhang said, "which is to stick to the points with my opponent during the first two rounds and not to be lagged behind, then to attack the opponent's weakness while his power was waning at the latter two rounds."
With this victory, Zhang said he's more than confident to win a gold medal. He'll face Irish Kenny Egan at his last bout, who easily defeated Briton Tony Jeffries 10-3 before Zhang's fight.
Zhang's coach Chao Lu said Zhang was fully prepared before the match, and he kept calm and steady throughout the fight, which was key to victory.
Zhang showed himself as the dark horse of this tournament, defeating four "enemies" during his four bouts, including world championship silver medalist Russian Artur Beterbiev.
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Egan is in the final. Versus a Goddamn Chinese.hno:
I'm sure the judging will be very fair. :neenee:
Time to visit Mr. Hedge or just ride it out with Egan?
MR Smith..If you are like me..you listened to Green Doberman and put a play in on Egan..It sounds like you did...I dont know about you guys...but I caught Egan at +8000!...
I am sorry as hell to read you write that he will be fighting a Chinese man..You better believe we better visit hedge city!...How often do you place a bet that goes off at +8000 and then the guy may be a favorite in the final?..This is a once in a lifer!
Mr. Doberman Sir..Was Egan`s opponent expected to be in the final?..Who do you think will be favored?... Man , I sure hope 5 Dimes puts those lines up for the finals!...Who knows, maybe they wont...This is too good to be true..I looked at all American friendly books last night..about 10 top notch ones..only place I saw the boxing lines was 5 Dimes...
Cut and pasted from the other thread on a discussion of the Vastine-Diaz fight:
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Pound for pound....fat
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 16,190
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<HR style="COLOR: #fdde82" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->I just finished watching the taped broadcast as I was out afternoon.
The Vastine decision was pretty much the worst I have seen all Olympics and I've watched most of the fights.
What happened was he was winning and pretty much dominating his opponent. Both were doing a little, his opponent arguably more. He was up 7-2 and the ref gave him a semi-mystery warning which gives his opponent two points making it 7-4. The gap was narrowed and eventually tied at 10-10 with 19 seconds left when the ref stops the action, looks to the judges and gives another warning and 2 points to his opponent who then ran to a win.
I did have a wager on Vastine. The line was close to a pick both ways all day. Right before the fight, DSethi alerts me that the line is now Diaz -500, Vastine +333. Drastic move, looks fishy but I three 25 more bucks on him. I'm watching the fight with an eerie feeling something funny is going to happen. However, Vastine is dominating and surging to a huge lead. SportSavant is following live betting on bet365 and Vastine is up to -2500. Then the mystery hold, a few punches for Diaz that could have been scored or not and all were, then it's 10-9 Vastine trying to dance and Diaz sort of lands a blow to tie it up. Now both fighters looked to their corner and know the score, and it happens. I seriously thought maybe the broadcast was delayed and maybe someone already knew the fight. I can tell you for the next few fights 5dimes starting taking them off the board a good 10 minutes earlier as I got the second Vastine bet in 1 minute prior to the scheduled time of first bell.
One more thing is that the holding penalties were magnified because the other semifinal in the weight class was an ugly holdfest in which the Thai fighter basically held and grabbed his way to victory.
I would say NBC's overkill of this is ridiculous. Of every fight in the Olympics I have seen, I would say there were at most 3 bad decisions. I'm talking unquestionably bad. Vastine-Diaz, Silva-Samir, and Vodopyanov-Kumar. All the others I could have argued either way.
Having the idiots at NBC question Paddy Barnes not losing 15-2 instead of 15-0 is of no relevance in my opinion.
Let me also disclose I had bets on Vastine, a future on Boonjumnong, and a future on Vodopyanov.
I'll cut and past this in my boxing thread as well.
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Pound for pound....fat
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 16,190
Blog Entries: 9
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<HR style="COLOR: #fdde82" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->I just finished watching the taped broadcast as I was out afternoon.
The Vastine decision was pretty much the worst I have seen all Olympics and I've watched most of the fights.
What happened was he was winning and pretty much dominating his opponent. Both were doing a little, his opponent arguably more. He was up 7-2 and the ref gave him a semi-mystery warning which gives his opponent two points making it 7-4. The gap was narrowed and eventually tied at 10-10 with 19 seconds left when the ref stops the action, looks to the judges and gives another warning and 2 points to his opponent who then ran to a win.
I did have a wager on Vastine. The line was close to a pick both ways all day. Right before the fight, DSethi alerts me that the line is now Diaz -500, Vastine +333. Drastic move, looks fishy but I three 25 more bucks on him. I'm watching the fight with an eerie feeling something funny is going to happen. However, Vastine is dominating and surging to a huge lead. SportSavant is following live betting on bet365 and Vastine is up to -2500. Then the mystery hold, a few punches for Diaz that could have been scored or not and all were, then it's 10-9 Vastine trying to dance and Diaz sort of lands a blow to tie it up. Now both fighters looked to their corner and know the score, and it happens. I seriously thought maybe the broadcast was delayed and maybe someone already knew the fight. I can tell you for the next few fights 5dimes starting taking them off the board a good 10 minutes earlier as I got the second Vastine bet in 1 minute prior to the scheduled time of first bell.
One more thing is that the holding penalties were magnified because the other semifinal in the weight class was an ugly holdfest in which the Thai fighter basically held and grabbed his way to victory.
I would say NBC's overkill of this is ridiculous. Of every fight in the Olympics I have seen, I would say there were at most 3 bad decisions. I'm talking unquestionably bad. Vastine-Diaz, Silva-Samir, and Vodopyanov-Kumar. All the others I could have argued either way.
Having the idiots at NBC question Paddy Barnes not losing 15-2 instead of 15-0 is of no relevance in my opinion.
Let me also disclose I had bets on Vastine, a future on Boonjumnong, and a future on Vodopyanov.
I'll cut and past this in my boxing thread as well.
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