4TH LOSS IN BOXING FOR GHANA
By John Vigah

Modern Ghana
13 Aug 2008
Ghana

Ghana’s misery in boxing at the Beijing Olympics continued yesterday
at the Workers gymnasium when Issah Samir lost his bout to Venuzuelan,
Manzanilla Hecto Rangel in a thrilling flyweight contest.

He lost by a 10-3 margin.

The highly impressive Samir, cheered on by Chinese fans including
one-man supporter, Abraham Boakye romped to a great-start with good
penetrative punches.

Unfortunately, a string of grotesque scoring including a strange
two-point deduction in the second round crumbled the dreams of the
Ghanaian.

As if that was not enough, assistant coach of the Black Bombers,
Isaac Ofori was shown the exit from the boxing area in the fourth
and final round for ‘offensive’ beha-viour.

Samir’s loss brings to four the total of losses recorded by the Black
Bombers at the game-with captain, Bastir Samir as the only winner.

Bastie Samir overcame a poor start to hand Nigeria’s Izobo Danda a
third round knockout in their high heavyweight clash.

On the reverse, Ahmed Saraku became the first Ghanaian casualty when
he crashed out to his counterpart from Armenia-Hakobayan Andranik
with an 8-14 verdict after four grueling joints.

Attempt to restore the team’s dwindling confidence hit the rocks when
a tongh Cuban challenger, Tarriele Idel upset Prince Octopus Dzanie.

This put a huge responsibility on bantamweight, Manyo Plange,
who is billed to fight a Phillipino today and needs to perform to
join Bastir Samir in the next stage of the competition. ¨ Sisters
Sere-na and Venus Williams continued their bids for Olympic gold with
second-round victories in the women’s singles tournament in Beijing.

Fourth seed Serena crushed Australia’s Samantha Stosur 6-3 6-0, while
seventh seed Venus was too strong for Iveta Benesova, winning 6-1 6-4.

"It was clean," said Serena. "My way of improving on it is to keep
it up."

In other matches, 10th seed Daniela Hantuchova and eighth seed
Agnieszka Radwanska both crashed out.

Hantuchova of Slovakia lost 6-1 6-3 to Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki,
while Radwanska of Poland was defeated 6-3 7-6 (8-6) by Italy’s
Francesca Schiavone.

Russian third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova had already lost to China’s
Li Na on Monday.

Serena was in total control against Stosur, taking only 44 minutes
to wrap up victory.

>From 2-2 in the opening set, Williams won 40 of the final 49 points,
losing only five points in the second set.

Venus Williams struggled with her second serve in her match, hitting
six double-faults, but she never faced a break point and lost only
two of 24 points on her first serve.

Serena and Venus, who also play together in the doubles, could meet
in the singles final.

–Boundary_(ID_kVAquwQVanxGunXoRUU97Q)–