Cuba’s reigning Olympic boxing champions Julio Cesar la Cruz and Arlen López both won their respective quarter-finals at Ryogoku Kokugikan on Friday to move a step closer to winning gold at Tokyo 2020.
The empty 11,000 seater Ryogoku Kokugikan is known as Sumo Hall in English and is home to the top tier sumo events in Tokyo but is regularly used for other sports such as professional wrestling and music concerts.
Boxing joined the Olympic program in 1904 and has been contested at every Olympics since then except for the Stockholm 1912 Games when the sport was outlawed in Sweden.
Women’s boxing was added to the program at the London 2012 Olympics.
Unlike some other Olympic combat sports such as judo, each category in boxing is contested over several days.
Rio 2016 gold medalist Julio la Cruz defeated Havana-born Emmanuel Reyes Pla of Spain in the day’s headline bout and the best fight of the session to move into the last four.
Four-time world champion la Cruz, 31, who has so far turned down a switch to the paid ranks, earned a points decision to move into the heavyweight semi-finals which will see him face Brazil’s Abner Teixeira on Tuesday.
After a win over the Cuba native was announced, la Cruz was heard in the ring saying: “Homeland and life, no. Homeland or death, we will win!”
Spaniard Reyes possesses knockout power and showcased his heavy-hitting as he knocked la Cruz down twice only for the amateur ace to take a surprise decision.
La Cruz tried to outfox Reyes who threw more and registered the bigger shots as the aggressor for all three rounds.
It looked like Reyes may have overexerted himself in the first two rounds, looking particularly menacing in the second stanza, but he was still landing with shots such as a stinging straight left hand in the final round.
Both men raised their hands claiming victory but it was la Cruz’s day and Reyes was quick to dispute the decision when talking to the media in the mixed zone.
“They have taken this to the political level,” said the Spaniard.
“He knows I won clean, I’m without a scratch.”
Number three seed Arlen Lopez, who ruled the middleweight division at Rio 2016, booked a place in the light heavyweight semi-finals after besting Pan Am bronze medalist Rogelio Romero of Mexico.
Lopez, 28, shut out his opponent Romero, who qualified via the continental quota, for a lopsided decision as he easily won all three rounds in the eyes of the judges.
The Cuban star is one of the most decorated amateur boxers in his country’s rich boxing history having won Olympic, world and Pan Am titles as well as the Central American and Caribbean Games and a Junior World Championships title.
Lopez has a second Olympic crown in his sights and the favorite moves on to face Cuba-born Loren Berto Alfonso Dominguez of Azerbaijan on Sunday after the number two seed saw off Turkey’s Bayram Malkan.
An IOC task force is running the Tokyo competition following the suspension in 2019 of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) for a range of issues involving governance, finance and ethics.
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