Will Harry break 12-yr drought?

Since the Philippines sent a platoon of four fighters in the country’s Olympic boxing debut in 1932, the sport has accounted for two silver and three bronze medals.

The record shows 71 Filipino boxers who’ve competed in 16 Olympics so far. Included in the roster are three-time Olympian Romeo Brin (1996, 2000, 2004) and two-timers Jose Padilla, Jr. (1932, 1936), Ernesto Parto (1948, 1952), Dominador Calumarde (1964, 1968), Rodolfo Arpon (1964, 1968), Leopoldo Cantancio (1984, 1988) and Roberto Jalnaiz (1988, 1992). Repeaters are listed only once in the Olympic roster.

When Harry Tañamor climbs onto the ring to face Ghana’s Manyo Plange in his first lightflyweight bout in Beijing on Wednesday, he will become the seventh two-time Filipino Olympic boxer.

The country’s last four medals came from boxing, which also brought in two silvers in the overall haul of nine (including seven bronzes) since the Philippines’ first Olympic appearance in the 1924 Summer Games.

Clearly, it is in boxing where the Philippines has enjoyed the most success in the Olympics. But boxing, or any other sport for that matter, has not delivered a medal for the Philippines since Onyok Velasco’s silver in 1996.

Tañamor, who turns 30 on Aug. 20, hopes to end the 12-year medal drought in Beijing. On his shoulders weigh heavy the burden of delivering the elusive and most coveted first Olympic gold medal for the Philippines.

Twice, the Philippines came close to hitting paydirt in Olympic boxing but Anthony Villanueva and Velasco fell a win short to settle for silvers.

On the way to the 1964 Tokyo finals, Villanueva ousted Italy’s Giovanni Gigrenti, Tunisia’s Tahar Ben Hassen, Poland’s Piotr Gutman and the US’ Charlie Brown.

In the battle for gold, Villanueva faced Russia’s Stanislav Stepashkin who scored a highly disputed win by split decision. Unlike in today’s Olympic electronic system, scorecards were manually added up in Tokyo.

In 1996, Velasco bowled over Taiwan’s Chih Shui Tsai, Cuba’s Yosvani Aguilera, Morocco’s Hamid Berhili and Spain’s Rafael Lozano before losing a 19-6 verdict to Bulgaria’s Daniel Petrov Bojilov in the Atlanta finals.

The three Filipino Olympic bronze medalists were Villanueva’s father Jose in 1932 (beating Japan’s Aikira Nakao and the US’ Joseph Lang before losing to Australia’s Horace Gwynne), Leopoldo Serrantes in 1988 (beating Egypt’s Moustafa Hassan, Liberia’s Samuel Stewart and Morocco’s Mahjoub Mjirih before losing to Bulgaria’s Ivailo Hristov) and Roel Velasco in 1992 (beating Kenya’s James Wanene, India’s Rajendra Prasad and England’s Rowan Williams before losing to Cuba’s Rogelio Marcelo).

Eight Filipino fighters advanced to the quarterfinals but failed to make it to the semis. They were Jose Padilla Jr. (1936), Simplicio de Castro (1936), Arpon (1964), Reynaldo Fortaleza (1976), Cantancio (1984), Jalnaiz (1992), Ronald Chavez (1992) and Elias Recaido (1996). With the introduction of the two-bronze medal system for the losing semifinalists in 1952, six Filipinos wound up a win short of bagging a bronze – Arpon, Fortaleza, Cantancio, Jalnaiz, Chavez and Recaido.

Cantancio was the closest of the six to claim a bronze medal. In 1984, he victimized Malawi’s Solomon Kondowe, Pakistan’s Kamran Dat and Nigeria’s Christopher Ossai then ran into Korea’s Chun Chil Sung in the quarters. Cantancio was ahead on points and 1 1/2 minutes away from a sure bronze when he got careless and collapsed in a heap from a vicious left hook to the jaw. Cuban referee Basulto Morales counted Cantancio out at 1:35 of the third round.

Cuba’s Enrique Steyners is in Beijing with Tañamor as the fourth foreign boxing coach employed by the Philippines after the US’ Eugene Menacho and Cubans Pedro Pacheco and Raul Liranza.

Qualifying competitions were introduced by the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) for the 1992 Olympics where each division was limited to 32 entries. In Beijing, seven classes (flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, lightweight, lightwelterweight, middleweight and lightheavyweight) list 28 entries, two (lightflyweight and welterweight) with 29 each and two (heavyweight and superheavyweight) with 16 each for a total of 286 in 11 weight categories.

The practice of using three rounds of three minutes each was scrapped in 2000 when contests of four rounds of two minutes each were instituted in Sydney. In 1992, the electronic scoring system made its debut with judges pushing a button on a console box within a split second of each other to register a scoring point.

The top four countries in the list of most Olympic boxing medals without a gold are Nigeria and Puerto Rico (six each) and Australia and the Philippines (five each). Asian countries with Olympic boxing gold medals are Kazakhstan (four), Thailand (three), South Korea (three), the People’s Republic of Korea (two), Uzbekistan (one) and Japan (one).

China has bagged only a single medal in Olympic boxing – a bronze from lightflyweight Zou Shiming in 2004. But this year’s host nation has a team of 10 fighters led by Zou, a two-time world champion in Tañamor’s division. It is only in the flyweight class where China has no entry.