Comebacking Tañamor captures lone RP gold

Harry Tañamor completed a successful comeback from his Athens debacle on Tuesday when he hammered out a lopsided victory over his Indonesian foe to capture the light flyweight gold medal in the 26th King’s Cup International Boxing Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tañamor, the 26-year-old Armyman from Zamboanga City, thundered with his fists and outclassed Ramdhani Kamal in the first three rounds before pulling off a 37-12 victory and handing the Philippines a fifth place finish in this 18-team, 15-nation world ranking tournament.

"Nirapido ko na sa umpisa pa lang at nang makaungos ako, hindi ko na tinigilan. Tapos nang sigurado na ang ginto, sumayaw-sayaw na lang ako sa final round," said Tañamor, the 2003 World Championships bronze medalist who zoomed to a big 29-10 lead going into the fourth of the four two-minute rounds bout.

While it was the lone medal bagged by the six-man RP squad, sent to this tough tournament by the First Gentleman Foundation and San Miguel Corporation with support from Pacific Heights as part of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (ABAP) eliminations for the team which will see action in the 2005 Manila Southeast Asian Games, it was enough to prop up the Philippines to the elite list in the tourney behind host Thailand, North Korea, Russia and Pakistan.

Thailand wound up with three gold medals while the North Koreans brought home two and Russia and Pakistan took one each.

"We are pleased with our result in this tournament. Harry is back to his old form and the lessons the coaching staff as well as the boxers learned from this experience will help the association a lot in fine-tuning the training program we designed for the SEA Games, the Qatar Asian Games and the 2008 Beijing Olympics," assessed ABAP president Manny Lopez.

"Coaches Leopoldo Cantancio and Elmer Pamisa and our new talents, particularly bantamweight Rolando Magbanua and lightweight Anthony Marcial, are going home with the lessons learned from their initial exposure to tournaments of this magnitude," Lopez added.

The other members of the team, veterans flyweight Violito Payla, light welterweight Florencio Ferrer and middleweight Francis Joven, lost their quarterfinals bouts but made a statement against their rivals that Filipinos are no pushovers.

The team returns to Manila on Wednesday.