By Ed Schuyler Jr., Ap Boxing Writer. Yahoo! September 15, 2000
SYDNEY (AP) - One of the most anticipated boxing matches at the Olympics will happen in the heavyweight quarterfinals if the great Felix Savon of Cuba and world champion Michael Bennett of Chicago can win first-round bouts.
Savon, seeking a record-tieing third Olympic gold medal, will box for the first time Sept. 21 against Rasmus Ojemaye of Nigeria. Bennett, boxing in open competition for only two years after serving seven years in prison for armed robbery, will fight on the same afternoon against Wojciech Bartnik
of Poland.
Should both Bennett and Savon win, they would box each other Sept. 26.
None of other 11 U.S. boxers can meet a Cuban opponent before the medal round. Six of the 11 possible bouts would be semifinals and five would be finals.
Boxers reaching the semifinals are assured of at least bronze medals.
The first Americans to see action at the Sydney Exhibition Center will be Clarence Vinson of Washington, D.C., and Dante Craig of Cincinnati.
The 22-year-old Vinson will box Rachid Bouaita of France, a 1997 world championships bronze medalist, in a first-round bout at 119 pounds Saturday afternoon. The 22-year-old Craig will oppose Fadel Showban Showban of Egypt in the first round at 147 pounds Saturday night.
While Bennett is a world champion and has a 7-0 record in international tournament competition, he has never boxed Savon, Olympic champion at 201 pounds in 1992 and 1996 and a world champion at the weight in 1986-89-91-93-95.
Savon, listed as being 33, was beaten in the final of the 1997 world championships by Ruslan Chagaev of Uzbekistan, who is boxing here. He was supposed to box Bennett in final last year, but he refused because of a decision that had gone against a Cuba boxer in an earlier bout. Bennett won the
title on walkover.
"I was very disappointed when I wasn't able to box Savon in the world championships,'' Bennett said. "I mean, who doesn't want to knock the lion off the mountain. He is a legend in amateur boxing, and I have a lot respect for him.''
A Bennett-Savon bout would be the 22nd between U.S. and Cuban boxers at six Olympics. The previous 21 bouts were at 1968-72-76-92-96 games, and Cubans won 14 of them. American boxers, however, have won four of five gold-medal bouts against Cubans, the last being David Reid's sensational
one-punch knockout of Alfred Duvergel in the third round in 1996 at Atlanta
The format for this tournament is four 2-minute rounds.
The only boxers to win three Olympic gold medals are heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson in 1972-76-80 and Lazlo Papp of Hungary at 165 pounds in 1948 and at 156 in 1952-56. | 