(SPOT.ph) The Philippines now officially has one gold medal (through Hidilyn Diaz's impressive performance), one guaranteed silver, and two guaranteed bronze medals for Tokyo 2020. The latest is courtesy of boxer Carlo Paalam, the country's representative in the men's flyweight division. He won against Uzbekistan's Shakhobidin Zoirov—who won gold in the 2016 Summer Olympics—in the quarterfinal match that started at around 10:20 a.m. today, August 3. The Filipino athlete won via a split decision for leading in the judges' scorecard. The fight was stopped after Zoirov sustained a cut just above his left eye in the second round.
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This is Paalam's debut Olympic appearance, but it's not his first win in an international boxing ring. The boxer from Cagayan de Oro took home a bronze medal from the 2016 AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships in St. Petersburg and the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, and bagged the gold medal in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines.
Paalam will be going up against Japan's Ryomei Tanaka on August 5, Thursday.
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