Six Team USA Boxers Punch Ticket to Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

 The Boxing Activity Drive (BTF) introduced at the moment the 49 quota locations, initially to be awarded on the Highway to Tokyo Americas Qualifier, that have been awarded to boxers to compete within the Olympic Video games Tokyo 2020 this summer time. The quota locations included six Workforce USA boxers, which was based mostly off the BTF Rankings.

“These six boxers have been staples inside our program and have established themselves amongst the world’s finest by their performances in the course of the previous quad,” acknowledged USA Boxing Excessive Efficiency Director Matt Johnson. “Now it’s time for them to carry out on the world’s largest stage in Tokyo.”

Representing Workforce USA on the Olympic Video games Tokyo 2020, pending United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee approval, can be Rashida Ellis (Lynn, Mass.) Virginia Fuchs (Houston, Texas), Naomi Graham (Fayetteville, N.C.), Delante Johnson (Cleveland, Ohio), Oshae Jones (Toledo, Ohio) and Richard Torrez Jr. (Tulare, Calif.). All six boxers can be competing of their first Olympic Video games.

2019 Elite Girls’s World Championships bronze medalist Ellis will compete within the girls’s light-weight (132 lbs./60 kg) division. Ellis gained bronze on the 2019 Pan American Video games so as to add to her BTF rankings to solidify her place in Tokyo because the second highest ranked America’s boxer and twelfth total in her weight class. Ellis can be seeking to win Workforce USA’s first girls’s light-weight Olympic medal.

“Qualifying for the Olympics has been considered one of my deepest desires,” talked about Ellis. “I by no means doubt my potential. I’ve stopped being afraid of what might go unsuitable and begin being enthusiastic about what might go proper. So, I embrace my errors and study from them, as my errors have helped me enhance and attain the Olympics. I don’t do simple; I make issues occur. The onerous work and dedication with effort and willpower, I can succeed.”
Fuchs will characterize Workforce USA within the flyweight division (112 lbs./51 kg). The 33-year-old can be seeking to earn USA Boxing its second medal within the girls’s flyweight division because the introduction of the occasion in London 2012. Fuchs brings a powerful resume to the ring, together with a bronze medal on the 2018 Elite Girls’s World Championships and silver medal from the 2019 Pan American Video games, which locations her because the second highest America’s flyweight boxer and sixteenth total within the BTF rankings.

“I’ve been ready for this second for a really very long time. I’m so excited I can lastly name myself an Olympian,” acknowledged Fuchs. “With all this world has been via and having to postpone the Olympics an entire 12 months, I’m proud to say I’m one of many members in what can be generally known as essentially the most acknowledged Olympics in historical past. I’m able to characterize my nation in essentially the most revered method and produce house the gold!”

2019 Pan American Video games Graham is the best seeded America’s feminine middleweight (165 lbs./75 kg) boxer within the BTF rankings, the place she presently sits eighth total. Graham earned factors from her Pan American Video games title, in addition to her third-place end on the 2018 Elite Girls’s World Championships and prime 5 end on the 2019 version. Graham, who will turn into USA Boxing’s first energetic feminine navy member to compete in an Olympic Video games, can be in competition to seize Workforce USA’s third straight Olympic gold medal within the girls’s middleweight division.

“It feels unreal that I’m going to the Olympics,” Graham acknowledged when speaking about incomes her place to Tokyo. “I proceed to shock myself by discovering my very own limits, after which having the braveness to blow previous them.”
Jones will step into the ring in one of many two newly added girls’s weight lessons, the welterweight (152 lbs./69 kg) division. Jones, who made historical past in 2019 together with her gold medal efficiency on the Pan American Video games, will look to proceed making historical past by turning into the primary Olympic gold medalists in her weight division. The 23-year-old added worthwhile factors to her rankings together with her prime 5 placement on the 2019 Elite Girls’s World Championships to complete as the highest America’s boxer and seventh within the total BTF rankings for the welterweight division to punch her ticket to the Olympics.

“I could solely take up one spot, however my one spot represents a lot,” shared Jones. “I’m past grateful for the possibility to characterize girls, African People, my small metropolis of Toledo, however most significantly, my nation.”
The second Ohioan to characterize Workforce USA, Johnson, extends the streak of Cleveland-native boxing Olympians to 4, following within the footsteps of Charles Conwell (2016), Terrell Gausha (2012) and Raynell Williams (2008). The welterweight (152 lbs./69 kg), who first caught the eye of the boxing world together with his gold medal efficiency on the 2016 Youth World Championships, earned his rating factors via his bronze medal end on the 2019 Pan American Video games and prime 16 placement on the 2019 Elite World Championships. Johnson was the third highest seeded America’s boxer and nineteenth total.

“My struggles are my stripes, and I put on them on my again, in order that the individuals round me can see that even once you’re residing in a jungle, you may nonetheless chase your desires,” acknowledged Johnson. “I’m not solely doing this for my metropolis, however for my two coaches, Dante Benjamin Sr. and Clint Martin, whom I misplaced throughout my journey to those Video games.”

Torrez, the best ranked tremendous heavyweight (201+ lbs./91+ kg) boxer from the Americas and eleventh total, earned his place via his third-place efficiency on the 2019 Pan American Video games and prime 5 standing at that 12 months’s Elite Males’s World Championships. Torrez, a former Youth World Championships bronze medalist, would be the first American boxer to compete on this weight class since 2012.

“Everyone seems to be completely happy they’re going to the Olympics, it’s everybody’s dream, however I should be there,” mentioned Torrez. “The hearth that was instilled in me earlier than I might even stroll, that drives me to be one of the best, the fireplace that has been in my household for generations, has overflowed. It has set ablaze all my second choices, and it has made ashes of some other risk in addition to that of success.”

Workforce USA can be guided by USA Boxing Nationwide Head Coach Billy Walshthroughout these Olympic Video games.

“It’s improbable information for our six boxers who’ve labored endlessly for the previous 5 years to turn into an Olympian, “ Walsh shared. “We now give attention to the subsequent stage of the method, to turn into an Olympic Champion.”
The boxing competitors will start on Saturday, July twenty fourth (JST). Proceed to test usaboxing.org and USA Boxing’s social media platforms to remain up to date on extra info relating to the Olympic Video games Tokyo 2020.
All crew nominations are topic to USOPC approval.