MANILA – Filipina Aira Villegas pulled off a stunner against Roumaysa Boualam of Algeria in the round-of-16 of the 2024 Paris Olympics’ women’s boxing 50kg division on Thursday night (Friday in the Philippines) at the North Paris Arena.
The Tacloban City, Leyte native, who turned 29 on Thursday, got the nod of the five judges to secure a victory and reach the quarterfinals round against France’s Wassila Lkhadiri.
“This is the best gift ever to myself. I will remember this for the rest of my life,” said Villegas after the match.
Villegas piled up the points with her quick aggression against the higher-ranked Boualam in the opening round to gain an early advantage from the judges.
The Filipina boxer got hurt in the second round but still managed to maintain her aggression to pile up the points in the next two rounds to secure the victory.
Meanwhile, Filipino pole vaulter Ernest John “EJ” Obiena is well-prepared for his gold medal quest in the Summer Games as he competes in the qualifier round on Saturday.
The former University of Santo Tomas standout previously said he was dealing with some issues ahead of the official start of his campaign, more specifically, “battling with physical problems.”
“Physically, I hope it’s better. I think it is going in the right direction,” Obiena said. “Like I said, I’m still in one piece so it could have been a lot worse. I guess I’ve also been very lucky this year.”
“They haven’t diminished, but I’m being a little bit smarter than how I normally should,” he added. “I’m taking it with a little bit of a grain of salt, and let’s just get through the qualifiers, and we get to the final.”
“I’m doing everything that I can. The games have not started for me. Competition is on August 3rd, final on the 5th,” he said. “I’ll take it one step at a time, and I still believe in myself. Yeah, let’s go get this.”/PN
