Ireland’s boxing tale of woe at the Paris Olympics continued with Michaela Walsh becoming the eighth fighter to fall at the first hurdle.
The Belfast featherweight became a double Olympian in Hall 8 of the North Paris Arena but rarely threatened to cause an upset against veteran Bulgarian Svetlana Kamenova Staneva (34) in a last-16 contest.
A southpaw, she had a significant height advantage over Walsh. This left Walsh with a huge dilemma because if she advanced the Bulgarian would pick her off at will. Instead, she stood off during a low-activity first round, which was virtually impossible to score.
“I felt it was a good enough performance,” said Walsh. “The first round was very, very cagey. Coming back in 5-0 down then was a bit frustrating. I was sort of chasing it after that. I felt I had a very good second and third round and felt the scoring didn’t reflect how close the fight actually was.
“I could have thrown a lot more punches, but I was wary because when I was going in with my flurries, she was very good on the counter. I was very unfortunate probably to meet her in the first round.”
She had marginally more success in the second, but four of the judges scored the round in favour of Staneva, which effectively sealed Walsh’s fate as her opponent was now two points clear on four of their cards.
Walsh threw caution to the wind and came forward more in the final round.
It didn’t impact the judges, though, who scored the round 5-0 for Staneva as she booked a place in the semi-final against Lin-Yu-Ting (Chinese Taipei) on scorecards of 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 29-28.
There will be an interesting undercurrent to this clash. At last year’s World Championships, Staneva lost to Lin-Yu-Ting, but in a decision which is now causing huge controversy at the Paris Games, the International Boxing Association (IBA) suspended Lin-Yu-Ting and Algeria welterweight Imane Khelif for what they claim was the boxers’ “failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition”.
As a result of Lin-Yu-Ting’s disqualification, Staneva was awarded the bronze medal. Now, they meet again in Paris.