Round 12: Historic Olympic Games
By Mauricio Sulaimán / Son of José Sulaimán / President of the WBC
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games have come to an end. Celebrated in 2021, will certainly be remembered by our and future generations, as an historic moment in the annals of sport.
Eleven thousand 326 athletes from 205 countries participated in this edition. Each of these athletes, their coaches, their families, and all those who, directly or indirectly, have to do with the athlete’s preparation, lived through complicated moments, caused by the outbreak of a virus that completely modified the process to get to Tokyo.
There was so much sacrifice, uncertainty and suffering to overcome the limitations imposed during its preparation, in order to get that ticket to finally be able to participate in the Olympic Games, the greatest and most important sporting event in the world.
The International Olympic Committee and the Government of Japan succeeded; National Olympic Committees, International Federations and athletes were able to run the competitions of the 33 participating sports.
The medal table closed dramatically, defining the winning country on the last day, with the United States of America as the winner, coming back at the end, and leaving the leader, China, in second place.
Here are the 10 countries with the most medals at Tokyo 2020:
# Country Gold Silver Bronze TOTAL
- USA 39 41 33 113
- China 38 32 18 88
- Japan 27 14 17 58
- G.B 22 21 22 65
- ROC(Russia) 20 28 23 71
- Australia 17 7 22 46
- Netherlands 10 12 14 36
- France 10 12 11 33
- Germany 10 11 16 37
- Italy 10 10 20 40
A total of 1,082 medals were presented, more than half obtained by the greatest economic powers.
Likewise, my congratulations to all the athletes who represented their country, for their dedication, passion and performance. Regardless of winning or losing, they all gave their all searching the Olympic dream.
Boxing is an Olympic sport since 1904 and is without a doubt one of the most popular ones. Specialized media reported boxing to be the 4th most searched sport in the internet, on the search engines of all different platforms. The IOC formed a special committee to run the qualification process as well as competition during the Games since the moment they stopped recognizing AIBA as the international federation in charge of the sport. Such committee faced extreme complications as many scheduled qualification tournaments had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
The IOC decided to keep the same rules used in Rio 2016 as they had no time to get into rules modifications. The major topic was that the rules have no differentiation whatsoever in the definition of “boxer” , so any boxer could participate, amateur, professional, world champion , legendary champion ….
That has been the major concern of the boxing world and even from the stablished boxers, who clearly understand the dangers of having a mature super star fighting against a young amateur fighter….
There were 40 professional boxers in total participating, however, very fortunately most were very limited in their profesional experience and did not represent any health risk during competition .
We all hope Olympic boxing will come back to basics and will concentrate in creating sensational competition within amateur fighters in a level field for all.
Following you Will find the chart of medals in boxing
Women’s flyweight
Gold: Sofya Krasteva (Bulgaria)
Silver: Buse Naz Cakiroglu (Turkey)
Bronze: Huang Hsiao-wen (Chinese Taipei) and Tsukimi Namiki (Japan)
Women’s featherweight
Gold: Sena Irie (Japan)
Silver: Nesthy Petecio (Philippines)
Bronze: Irma Testa (Italy) and Karris Artingstall (Great Britain)
Women’s lightweight
Gold: Kellie Harrington (Ireland)
Silver: Beatriz Ferreira (Brazil)
Bronze: Sudaporn Seesondee (Thailand) and Mira Potkonen (Finland)
Women’s welterweight
Gold: Busenaz Surmeneli (Turkey)
Silver: Gu Hong (China)
Bronze: Lovlina Borgohain (India) and Oshae Jones (United States)
Women’s middleweight
Gold: Lauren Price (Great Britain)
Silver: Li Qian (China)
Bronze: Nouchka Fontijn (Netherlands) and Zenfira Magomedalieva (ROC)
Men’s flyweight
Gold: Galal Yafai (Great Britain)
Silver: Carlo Paalam (Philippines)
Bronze: Ryomei Tanaka (Japan) and Saken Bibossinov (Kazakhstan)
Men’s featherweight
Gold: Albert Batyrgaziev (ROC)
Silver: Duke Ragan (United States)
Bronze: Samuel Takyi (Ghana) and Lazaro Alvarez (Cuba)
Men’s lightweight
Gold: Andy Cruz (Cuba)
Silver: Keyshawn Davis (United States)
Bronze: Hovhannes Bachkov (Armenia) and Harry Garside (Australia)
Men’s welterweight
Gold: Roniel Iglesias (Cuba)
Silver: Pat McCormack (Great Britain)
Bronze: Aidan Walsh (Ireland) and Andrey Zamkovoy (ROC)
Men’s middleweight
Gold: Hebert Sousa (Brazil)
Silver: Oleksandr Khyzhniak (Ukraine)
Bronze: Eumir Marcial (Philippines) and Gleb Bakshi (ROC)
Men’s light heavyweight
Gold: Arlen Lopez (Cuba)
Silver: Ben Whittaker (Great Britain)
Bronze: Imam Khataev (ROC) and Loren Alfonso Dominguez (Azerbaijan)
Men’s heavyweight
Gold: Julio la Cruz (Cuba)
Silver: Muslim Gadzhimagomedov (ROC)
Bronze: David Nyika (New Zealand) and Abner Teixeira (Brazil)
Men’s super heavyweight
Gold: Bakhodir Jalolov (Uzbekistan)
Silver: Richard Torrez Jr (United States)
Bronze: Frazer Clarke (Great Britain) and Kamshybek Kunkabayev (Kazakhstan)
TODAY’S ANECDOTE
The dream of every athlete is to one day be able to represent their country.
The Sulaiman family has always been full of athletes, since my father instilled it in us since we were kids.
Once upon a time Don José was going to represent Mexico in the Pan American Games with the baseball team; Unfortunately, his mother, my grandmother Wasila, passed away, and that prevented him from making the trip, but he always wanted one of his children to make it.
My brother Fernando was a great swimmer; He has in his house a large number of medals obtained in tournaments organized by the Nelson Vargas Aquatic.
Pepe and Héctor participated in national and international baseball tournaments, and I was so fortunate to participate in the Little Leagues Baseball World Cup, in Panama, in 1982.
My mom was with me the entire tournament and my dad went to a couple of games; in the semi-final we faced Panama in a packed stadium. Don José arrived with Roberto Mano de Piedra Durán, Hilario Zapata and boxing promoter Luis Espada.
The team manager left me on the bench, as the innings went by , my anguish grew when I saw my dad in the stands, hoping to see me play; I felt impotence, I wanted to go out and play and make him proud….
In the end we won 7-0 and eliminated Panama from the World Cup; I did not play, they left me on the bench; Despite this, my Dad came running to me with a huge smile, hugged me and said : “Congratulations my son, what a great game, Mexico is in the semi-finals! I am very proud of you, my kid!”.
Moments like that define life and give you context for what is most important; that day I learned a great lesson.
I appreciate your comments at contact@wbcboxing.com
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