US Boxing Favorite Loses to Korean Champ By One Point
An American boxing team favorite had to give up his hopes for Olympic gold after losing to his Korean opponent in the first round which lasted a disappointing 9 minutes. Rau’shee Warren, considered to be the face of US boxing for the past four years, looked broken as he got out of the ring in tears, after losing to Korean boxer Oksung Lee, the same boxer who was able to defeat him in the 2005 National championships.
Warren was trailing by a point in the first round with a score of 9-8, something which apparently was not clear to the two-time boxing Olympian since he spent a good forty seconds without making any move, despite the calls of his coaches to throw in more punches. “I was confused about why he stopped,” said Dan Campbell, the US boxing coach. “We were screaming to him to throw punches. He said he heard someone saying for him to move. He was looking up in the stands. … He thought they were saying “move.’ I know we were screaming.”Apparently Warren got confused by the calls of the his family, friends and teammates at ringside who were shouting at him to move, further reinforcing his mistaken belief that he was the one with the lead, when in fact, he was trailing behind the opponent.
What makes the loss even more painful is that Warren gave up a promising professional boxing career for a spot in Beijing and had to endure another four long years of training after he first competed in Athens as the youngest boxer in the US contingent. Warren was a medal favorite of the US team, along with team mate Demetrius Andrade who fortunately won his debut fight on Sunday.
