Your London Games boxing guide
by Ron Jackson 22 July 2012, 18:16
A total of 250 men and 36 women will compete for 39 medals when the Olympic Games boxing competition starts in London on Saturday.
The men will fight in ten categories and the women in three, with all the bouts taking place at the Excel Arena. The last fights will be on Sunday August 12.
The men’s categories consist of 16, 26 or 28 boxers. The women start with a draw of 16 or at the quarterfinal stage.
The winners of the semifinals in each division fight for the gold medal. The runner-up takes silver and the losers of the semifinals each take home a bronze. There are 13 gold medals to be won.
The men’s bouts are over three rounds of three minutes and those for women over four rounds of two minutes.
Boxers may not be older than 34 years and only one entrant per country is allowed to compete in each category.
The gloves weigh 284 grams (10 ounces) each. During the Games, competitors will use 432 pairs of gloves. All fighters must wear head guards.
The ring is 6.1m x 6.1m inside the ropes, which are 1.32 m high.
THE SCORING
For each fight there are five judges sitting at ringside. The boxers are awarded one point for every punch they land with the marked part on their glove, either to the upper body or the head.
If three of the judges strike the electronic buttons within a second of each other the boxer gets a point.
If any boxer is more than 12 points ahead, he or she automatically wins.
If a boxer is knocked to the canvas and fails to get up within a count of 10 from the referee, the bout is over. Bouts can also be won or lost by retirement or disqualification. A referee can stop the fight at any point if he thinks a boxer is in an unfit state to continue.
If two boxers end up with the same number of points, the judges select a winner by assessing factors such as which of the two was more inclined to take the lead and showed better style.
If the judges still can’t pick a winner, they give the decision to the one who showed the better defence.
THE WEIGHT DIVISIONS
Men: Light-flyweight 49 kg; flyweight 52; bantam 56; light 60; light-welter 64; welter 69; middle 75; light-heavy 81, heavy 91; super-heavyweight over 91 kg.
Women: flyweight 51 kg, lightweight 60 and middleweight 75.
There are two sessions on most of the days. The afternoon sessions start at 1.30 pm British time, except for August 9 when it starts at 4:30 pm.
The evening sessions start at 8.30 pm.
THE SCHEDULE
July 28: Afternoon and evening: Men’s bantam and middleweight – round of 32
July 29: Afternoon and evening: Men’s lightweight and welterweight – round of 32
July 30: Afternoon and evening: Men’s flyweight and light-heavyweight – round of 32
July 31: Afternoon and evening: Men’s light-flyweight and light-welterweight – round of 32
August 1: Afternoon and evening: Men’s bantamweight, heavyweight and super-heavyweight – round of 16.
August 2: Afternoon and evening: Men’s lightweight and middleweight – round of 16
August 3: Afternoon and evening: Men’s flyweight and welterweight – round of 16
August 4: Afternoon and evening: Men’s light-flyweight, light-welterweight and light-heavyweight – round of 16.
August 5: Afternoon: Women's flyweight, lightweight and middleweight – round of 16.
Evening: Men's bantamweight and heavyweight quarterfinals.
August 6: Afternoon: Women’s flyweight, lightweight and middleweight quarterfinals.
Evening: Men's lightweight, middleweight and super-heavyweight quarterfinals.
August 7: Evening: Men's flyweight and welterweight quarterfinals.
August 8: Afternoon: Women's flyweight, lightweight and middleweight semifinals.
Evening: Men’s light-flyweight, light-welterweight and light-heavyweight quarterfinals.
August 9: Afternoon: Women’s flyweight, light-weight and middleweight finals and medal ceremonies.
August 10: Afternoon: Men’s light-flyweight, bantamweight, light-welterweight, middleweight and
heavyweight semifinals.
Evening: Men's flyweight, lightweight, welterweight, light-heavyweight and super-heavyweight semifinals.
August 11: Evening: Men’s light-flyweight, bantamweight, light-welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight finals and medals ceremonies.
August 12: Afternoon: Men’s flyweight, lightweight, welterweight, light-heavyweight and super-heavyweight finals and medal ceremonies.
HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
The Greeks believed the gods in Olympus took part in fist fighting and introduced boxing as part of the ancient Olympics in about 688 BC.
The boxers wore leather bands around their fists, and sometimes metal-filled leather hand coverings called cesti, which often resulted in bloody fights, even to the death.
Since the first modern Olympics in St Louis in 1904 many of the boxers who participated in the Games went on to
become famous professionals.
Among those who won Olympic gold medals and professional word titles are Pascual Perez (1948), Floyd Patterson (1952), Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali), (1960), Joe Frazier (1964), George Foreman (1968), Sugar Ray Leonard (1976), Michael Spinks (1976), Leon Spinks (1976), Pernell Whitaker (1984), Lennox Lewis (1988), Oscar de la Hoya (1992) and Wladimir Klitschko (1996).
