Tokyo Olympics: Eumir Marcial misses out on shot at gold after losing semi-final thriller
- The Filipino is forced to settle for Olympic bronze after being beaten by top-seeded Ukrainian Oleksandr Khyzhniak
- The fight goes down to the wire but the European prevails 3-2 at the Kokugikan Arena
Marcial, 25, had edged the first two rounds, landing the bigger punches in a fight that buzzed with a series of huge exchanges. But Khyzhniak dug deeper than the Filipino in the final round and narrowly took the victory, the judges split 3-2.
He ripped through his opponents in the first two rounds of the competition before coming up against Khyzhniak, a former world amateur champion, European amateur champion, and the reigning European Games gold medallist.
It was a fine contest with unrelenting action from the off and the two trading shots that could easily have felled anyone in action at the hallowed sumo arena this week. But with a gold-medal shot on the line, neither fighter was prepared to give any quarter.
For a while, Marcial was getting the better of the contest. With so many huge shots being traded, it wasn’t a boxing display for the purists – fights that last for three three-minute periods do not lend themselves easily to a measured approach, but it was comfortably one of the more exciting bouts of the Olympic programme.
