Several Tokyo boxing champions secure their place in Paris

A lot of people - myself included - consider that being an Olympic champion is forever.

However, it goes against the grain, if we look ahead, the Olympic champion ceases to be an Olympic champion the very moment they step off the podium with their gold medal around their neck.

What is this contradiction about?

Simple. Winning a gold medal doesn’t guarantee you a place in the next edition of a game.

There is a lot of logic in this concept: to begin with, a gap of four years—occasionally three, in this case—is too wide to ensure that those who have just been consecrated will continue in their entirety; at least enough to deserve the place of another growing competitor.

Olympism has hundreds of cases in this regard and, in this way, it guarantees the double charm of enjoying the legend, if it repeats competitions -Phelps, Bolt, Ledecky, Caslavska, Latynina, Isabelle Werth, Brigit Fischer, etc-, as well as of enjoying newcomers.

Even without having closed its qualifying stages, Olympic boxing already guarantees that several Tokyo champions will try to repeat the conquest in the finals that will be held at the legendary Roland Garros Stadium.

Arlen López (Cuba), Julio Cesar La Cruz (Cuba), Bakhodir Jalolov (Uzbekistan), Kellie Harrington (Ireland), Busenaz Surmeneli (Turkey), Hasanboy Dusmatov (Uzbekistan) and Estelle Mossely (France) already have their place in the Olympic village. The latter two having been champions not in Tokyo but in Rio 2016.

The path of each category is too long to ensure that they repeat their glory.

Not to mention the case of Lopez and La Cruz, aspiring to a third crown that would allow them to match, at least in numbers, the epic of the enormous Teofilo Stevenson, champion in Munich, Montreal and Moscow.