On July 20, 1924,
Pedro Quartucci
defeated the Belgian Jean Devergnies and won the bronze medal in the featherweight boxing category at the Paris Olympic Games.
That same night, a while later at the Vélodrome d'Hiver,
Alfredo Copello
(silver in the lightweight division),
Héctor Méndez
(silver in welterweight) and
Alfredo Porzio
(bronze in heavyweight) also won their medals.
They were the first
four of the 24
(seven of them gold) that boxing gave to the national sport,
the discipline that contributed the most to the historic harvest
.
A century later, the country is at risk of not having representation in the sport of gloved fists
for the first time since then
, just when the event will be again in the French capital.
Two hundred and forty-eight athletes will present in Paris in this discipline
: 124 boxers, divided into seven categories, in the men's competition, which has been part of the Olympic program since Saint Louis 1904 (it was only missing in Stockholm 1912 because the sport was prohibited in Sweden );
124 boxers, divided into six divisions, in the women's event, which was recently incorporated in London 2012.
The path to obtain one of those 248 places
included three stations, of which two have already been crossed
, in which 188 athletes ensured their presence in the
City of Light
.
19 weeks before the start of the most important sporting event of the year, Argentine boxing has still not been able to classify even one representative for the competition that will take place between July 27 and August 10 at the Paris-Nord Exhibition Center in Villepinte. (the preliminary rounds) and at the Philippe-Chatrier stadium of the Roland Garros complex (the final stages).
The first access door was through the continental qualification tournaments that took place between June and December of last year and which distributed 139 places (75 for women and 64 for men).
In the case of America, the
Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile
were the instance in which 14 quotas were distributed for the seven men's categories (two for each one) and 16 for the six women's categories (two for each divisions up to 50 kilos). , up to 54, up to 66 and up to 75; four for the categories up to 57 kilos and up to 60).
The Pan American Games, which Argentina attended with a dozen representatives (six women and four men), were the least complicated instance to seek a ticket to Paris.
However, none of the 10 candidates achieved it, despite the fact that both
Ramón Quiroga
from Salta (51 kilos) and
Abraham Buonarrigo
from Mendoza (80 kilos) climbed to the podium after winning bronze medals.
Abraham Buonarrigo won a bronze medal at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, but did not qualify for the Olympics.
Photo: Iván Alvarado / Reuters.
Quiroga, who debuted in paid boxing in 2021 and has already fought eight fights as a professional, fell in the semifinals against Brazilian Michael Douglas Da Silva Trinidade in a very tight fight.
Buonarrigo, who has 17 fights won, capitulated in the same instance against a star, the Cuban Arlen López, Olympic champion in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The Buenos Aires native Victoria Saputo
was also one win away from qualifying at 60 kilos
, who She lost in the quarterfinals to the Ecuadorian María José Palacios Espinoza (her category awarded four places).
“The best chance was in the Pan American Games.
We started the competition very well, but in the decisive moments the results we expected did not occur," acknowledges
Fabricio Nieva
, technical director of the national team. "Ramón Quiroga deserved better luck and Florencia López was very close as well.
We failed in some fights that we thought we were in a position to win
," he adds.
Fabricio Nieva trusts that Argentine boxing will have representation in Paris.
The next instance to get a ticket to Paris was the First
World Qualification Tournament
, which was held under the orbit of the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit, a body created
ad hoc
by the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee as a consequence of the suspension of Olympic recognition from the International Boxing Association (IBA).
This contest ended on Monday, after nine days of competition at the Maria Piantanida Sports Palace in Busto Arsizio, 40 kilometers from Milan.
600 athletes from 112 countries
participated in this extremely demanding tournament
(a record number for a competition of this type), who bid for 49 places for the Games: 28 for men and 21 for women.
After 551 fights, boxers from 30 National Olympic Committees and a representative of the Refugee Boxing Team (Cameroonian Cindy Ngamba) achieved qualification.
Once again Argentina, which participated with six boxers, was left empty-handed
.
Lorena Balbuena from Santa Fe dreams of Olympic qualification in the category up to 66 kilos.
“
We are not satisfied with the result because we went to look for the classification
, although we knew in advance that it was going to be very difficult because each one had to win three or four very tough fights, which are generally won and lost by divided failures,” explains Fabricio Nieva.
Of the members of the sextet chosen by the technical director to seek passage to Paris on Italian soil, three lost in the first round: Abraham Buonarrigo at 80 kilos (to the Norwegian Mindaugas Gedminas), the Buenos Aires native Luciano Amaya, barely 19 years old, at 63,500 kilos (against Azeri Tayfur Aliyev) and Lorena Balbuena from Santa Fe at 66 kilos (against Kazakh Natalya Bogdanova).
Luciano Amaya was the youngest Argentine boxer who competed in the World Qualification Tournament in Italy.
Until the second round, Florencia López from Buenos Aires arrived at 50 kilos and Sofía Robles at 54 kilos.
Robles beat German Ari Asya by no-show and then lost to American Shera Mae Patricio.
López defeated the Mexican Ingrid Gómez Galicia and succumbed to the Japanese Rinka Kinoshita.
The one who went the furthest was Ramón Quiroga: the captain of the national team beat the Kyrgyz Nurzhigit Dyushebaev and the Guatemalan Carlos Ramírez before losing to the Puerto Rican Juanma López de Jesús in the round of 16 of the 51 kilos.
“Quiroga was very close.
He ended up losing by split decision a fight in which perhaps we made a mistake with the tactics in the first round.
He was very close.
Luciano Amaya also had a very good fight that we had seen him win.
They are very even fights with high level rivals.
We were competitive, but he didn't catch up to us
,” laments Nieva.
Florencia López is the Argentine professional light flyweight champion, but she also aspires to compete in the Paris Olympic Games.
National boxing has one more chance to catapult at least one representative to the Games and thus prevent a century of uninterrupted Olympic presence from coming to an end.
It will be in the
Second World Qualification Tournament
, which will take place between May 23 and June 3 in
Bangkok
(Thailand) and will grant
51 places for Paris
: 28 for men and 23 for women (the remaining nine -five for women and four for men - to complete the 248 participants will be provided at the discretion of the IOC).
With the aim of arriving in the best conditions for that competition, the team will travel to Brazil in April to work with that country's team for two weeks.
Those who finally make the team will travel to Bangkok 10 or 15 days before the start of the qualifier.
The formation of the delegation will be conditioned by the number of places that Argentina has and
Nieva does not rule out that there will be changes in the formation for that tournament
, which is expected to be very complicated due to the level of opposition.
Ramón Quiroga, one of the hopes of Argentine boxing to reach Paris.
Photo: Buda Mendes / AP.
“
There are many top-level boxers, candidates to win a medal at the Games, who have not yet qualified
.”
They are very tough competitions and you have to have a bit of luck that we haven't had yet," explains the technical director, who clarifies that "you also have to adjust things to improve performance."
“It was difficult for us not to have had competition from the Pan American Games until the qualifier (in Italy).
We had good camps, but no combats.
That perhaps worked against it
,” explains Nieva, who, in any case, trusts that the work will bear fruit and Argentine boxing will give the present in Tokyo.