MANILA – Filipina boxer Nesthy Petecio is just one win away from getting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics medal.
This, after she stunned top seed Yu-Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei, 3-2, in the women’s featherweight division round-of-16 on Monday at Kokukigan Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
At the onset of the match, the Filipina slugger blasted her foe with heavy punches and strong combinations to earn 10-9 on three of the five judges.
The tight slugfest continued in the second round as both scored 19-all, while one judge favored the Filipina and the other one on the Taiwanese. In the third quarter, Petecio unloaded more combinations on Yu-Ting to garner 29-28 from the three judges.
With the victory, Petecio booked a quarterfinal match against Yeni Marcela Arias Castaneda of Colombia on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Filipino boxer Carlo Paalam recorded a split decision victory over Irvine Brendan of Ireland in the men’s flyweight round-of-32 match.
Paalam dominated the first two rounds of the match with his 1-2 combinations while Brendan tried to topple him.
Paalam appeared to have gassed out in the third round but was still able to throw some combinations just enough to earn the nod of four out of five judges.
Petecio and Paalam were just two of the four Filipino boxers competing in the Summer Games aside from Ilongga fighter Irish Magno and professional boxer Eumir Marcial./PN
