Mughalzai through to round of 32 on tricky day three at Olympic qualifying event for Great Britain’s boxers
GREAT Britain’s Patris Mughalzai earned his place in the light-welterweight round of 32 with the team’s only win on a tricky day three at the Boxing Road to Paris Olympic qualifying event in Italy.
The disappointment on the day came as Shona Whitwell and Lewis Richardson exited the competition being held in Busto Arsizio.
Mughalzai earned the team’s first and only win of the day with a 4:1 split victory over El Salvador’s Samuel Contreras.
It was a close opening round, however Patris asserted himself well across the remainder of the bout to line up a clash with Iran’s Ali Habibnezhad at 19:15pm in the next round of the 63.5kg contest on Thursday 7th March.
Mughalzai said: “It was a good win. I felt a bit rusty cause I’ve had a good few days waiting for my tournament to start but I’m happy to get it out of the way and move onto the next one.
“Now that the cobwebs are off, the next one I’ll come a lot sharper, faster, and slicker. That was just the warmup and now we go on to better things.”
Shona Whitwell and Lewis Richardson were the other two GB Boxers to compete on day three, suffering defeats however asWhitwell lost unanimously to Kosovo’s Donjeta Sadiku whilst Richardson was narrowly beaten 3:1 in a tight contest with India’s Dev Nishant.
Three boxers will compete on day four of the Boxing Road to Paris Olympic qualifying event tomorrow.First into the ring at 12:00pm, and representing the IOC’s refugee team, is Cindy Ngamba.
The middleweight will face USA’s Naomi Graham.
Also at middleweight, England’s Chantelle Reid takes on Eyed Angel George of Trinidad and Tobago at 13:15pm.
Concluding the day and boxing for the second time in Italy already is flyweight Kiaran MacDonald, who versus Trinidadian Al Jaleel Ortega Jokhu at 19:15pm for a place in the last 16.