Boxers to Watch in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics
By Anthony “Stacks” Saldaña
With the 2016 Summer Games in Rio quickly upon us, I’m giving boxing fans an inside look at five boxers I feel will be the ones to watch. These boxers all have special background stories and are my favorites to bring home the gold for their respective countries.
#5. Michael Conlan at age 24 and hailing from Belfast, Ireland, Rio will be Conlans’ second appearance on the Olympic stage. Michael competed in the 2012 Olympics in London for Ireland bringing home the bronze medal. Conlan’s only loss in the London Games came in his semi-final bout against Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez, who went on to win gold in the final. In October of 2015 Colon won the gold in the Bantamweight division of the AIBA World Championships. The victory for Conlan the Irishman secured the first-ever World Championship gold medal for Ireland in the 41-year history of the tournament after claiming a 3-0 unanimous decision win over Murodjon Akhmadaliev of Uzbekistan in their (56kg) bantamweight final.
#4. Patrick Barnes is a 29 year old known in the streets of Belfast, Ireland as “Paddy Bronze.” Barnes is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, and hopes the third time will be a charm to clinch gold at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Barnes is now the top ranked Light Flyweight (49kg) in the world and along with teammate Michael Conlan hopes to bring home a gold medal for their home country of Ireland. In 2008 “Paddy” lost to China’s Zou Shiming in the semi-final. Shiming went on to win the gold that year in Beijing. Then in 2012 at the London games, Barnes found himself in a semi-final rematch with Zou Shiming. The rematch brought a 15-15 score after three rounds but after a count-back the judges gave the fight Zou Shiming who went on to win his second Olympic gold. Many observers felt Barnes’ last-round rally might have been enough to edge the contest. The Irishman thought he had won the bout when they announced that a Zou had won the fight. Barnes has been chosen to be the bearer of the Irish Flag at the 2016 Olympic Games, something that Barnes considers an “Incredible Honor.”
#3. Carlos Balderas is a 19 year old first generation Mexican American from Santa Maria, California. Balderas is the son of immigrants who worked the strawberry fields of the central coast of California to give him a better life. Now Carlos will be representing the United States of America at Lightweight (60kg) this summer in Rio. Balderas is one of the few boxers who didn’t have to box in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials because of a series of matches he won in the World Series of Boxing. Carlos boxed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in December of 2014 and won five matches in five days. That gave Balderas the opportunity to fight in seven different countries from January to June of 2015. Carlos never lost a match. In fact, he won unanimously in every one, earning enough points along the way to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team without having to go through the Olympic Trials. He was the first U.S. boxer to qualify for the 2016 Games. The U.S. boxing program has boasted 110 medalists, 49 gold and has given us stars like Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd “Money”Mayweather. But Andre “SOG” Ward has been the only boxer to win a men’s gold medal in the last three Olympics. Now the USA looks to young Balderas to get them back to the winning ways of the past.
#2. Arthur Biyarslanov “The Chechen Wolf” will also be one to watch as he pursues an Olympic gold for Canada. At light welterweight (64kg) Arthur is Chechen refugee who fled his home with his family at age four when a perennial conflict over independence from Russia escalated into full-scale war. He and his family escaped Chechnya and ended up Azerbaijan another former Soviet republic for six years before relocating to Canada in 2005. Biyarslanov officially became a Canadian citizen in 2011 and is thankful every day for the opportunities his new home has provided. Biyarslanov’s has true talent and raw power as that showed last year as he won gold medal at the Pan Am Games. Arthur went into those games and upset Cuba’s Yasniel Toledo, the Pan Am champion in 2011 and an Olympic bronze medalist in 2012. Recently Arthur won the Continental Olympic Qualifier in Argentina. Now, he’s looking for the trifecta, which he can complete this summer at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Biyarslanov hopes to bring his adopted country of Canada their first gold since Lennox Lewis did it at the Seoul Games in 1988.
#1. Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, this female boxer is all the talk of the boxing world going into Rio this summer. Claressa is an American boxer who at 17 made her Olympic debut at the Summer Games in London in 2012, and took home an Olympic middleweight gold medal. Shields grew up in Flint, Michigan, and began boxing when she was only 11 years old. By 2012 she was 26–0, but a loss at the Women’s World Championships in Qinhuangdao, China, nearly derailed her Olympic dreams. Less than a week after her first loss, however, Shields years of hard work paid off when she was named to the American Olympic Team. At the Summer Olympic Games, Shields won an Olympic middleweight gold medal in a 19-12 victory over Russia’s Nadezda Torlopova. Since becoming the first American female boxer to win the Olympic Games in 2012, Shields has won a Youth World Championship, two Elite World Championships, the 2015 Pan American Games and the Americas Olympic Qualifier in addition to numerous national championships. She has notched wins in 10 different countries across four continents. Claressa added another global honor to her growing list when the U.S. middleweight won her second consecutive Women’s World Championships gold medal at Astana, Kazakhstan. Shields is the first American female boxer to win two elite world titles. With the Victory Shields moved to 74-1 overall and has won 48 straight fights since her only loss to Great Britain’s Savannah Marshall at the May 2012 World Championships, according to USA Boxing. Shields will not fight again until the Rio Games in August, where she can become the first American boxer to earn gold at multiple Olympics.
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