Iowa Behemoth Antonio Mireles Wins Gold at the U.S. Olympic Trials

The 2019 Olympic Trials concluded Monday (Dec. 16) at the Civic Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Only six boxers – four men and two women – were in action the final day. That’s because this is a double-elimination tournament and rubber matches (so-called box-offs) were needed to decide the winners of three of the 13 brackets.

The big fellows always command the most interest and a very big fellow emerged as the champion of the super heavyweight division. Antonio Mireles, who stands six-foot-eight and weighs in the vicinity of 250 pounds, defeated top seed Jeremiah Milton. But Mireles, from Des Moines, Iowa, is far from assured a berth at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

The next stage of competition is a month-long training camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The top two finishes from the Lake Charles tournament will attend the camp and the coaches have the right to select a runner-up from the Olympic Trials, potentially knocking Mireles down a peg to the status of an Olympic Alternate. Then he would have to wish that things play out as they did in 1964 when Smokin’ Joe Frazier won gold at the Tokyo Olympics as a replacement for Buster Mathis who had to pull out with an injured thumb.

AIBA, the governing body for international amateur boxing, now uses a complicated point system to determine each country’s Olympic team. Following the January camp in Colorado Springs, there is a qualifying tournament in Buenos Aires (March 26-April 3) and a Last Chance tournament in Paris (May 13-24).

There are a lot more thorns in the path of Olympic hopefuls than back in the days when the United States fielded formidable Olympic boxing teams as Jonathan Esquivel can certainly testify. After winning the 2016 Olympic trials, Esquivel was eliminated at a qualifying tournament in Venezuela by Cameroon’s Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, an established pro. (Nowadays, Esquivel is a rising super middleweight contender with a record of 13-0 with 12 knockouts.)

Lake Charles Notes (Men)

There were plenty of upsets. Two #8 seeds, featherweight Bruce Carrington and heavyweight Darius Fulghum, won their brackets. Carrington, from the gritty Brownsville “hood” of Brooklyn, the spawning ground for such notables as Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe, upset Cincinnati veteran Duke Ragan in his opening match. Fulghum overcame #7 seed Jamar Talley in Monday’s box-off to advance. A graduate of the nursing program at Prairie View A & M, Fulghum hails from the tiny town of Rosharon, Texas, but trains in Houston.

Keyshawn Davis, the top seed at lightweight, won his final match in a walkover when his opponent Ernesto Mercado took sick and had to bow out. Davis, a silver medalist at the Pan-American Games and the World Championships in Ekaterinburg, Russia, is considered to have the best chance of any U.S. fighter of winning a gold medal in Tokyo. From Norfolk, Virginia, hometown of the late, great Pernell Whitaker, Davis just may be the 2020 version of Shakur Stevenson, the most heralded member of the U.S. team in Rio.

Here’s the list of all eight winners:

Men

114 pounds – Abraham Perez (Albuquerque, NM)

125 pounds – Bruce Carrington (Brooklyn, NY)

138 pounds – Keyshawn Davis (Norfolk, VA)

152 pounds – Tiger Johnson (Cleveland, OH)

165 pounds – *Javier Martinez (Milwaukee, WI)

178 pounds – Raheem Gonzalez (Las Vegas, NV)

201 pounds – *Darius Fulghum (Rosharon, TX)

201+ pounds – Antonio Mireles (Des Moines, Iowa)

Lake Charles Notes (Women)

The women’s competition was far more predictable as four of the top seeds advanced to the next stage. Flyweight Virginia Fuchs, 31, a former long distance runner at LSU, became the second woman to win back-to-back Olympic Trials, joining Claressa Shields.

Middleweight Naomi Graham, 30, has an interesting back story. A U.S. Army Staff Sergeant, Graham was homeless for about a year during her teens. The youngest of six children, the North Carolina native has been residing full-time at the Colorado Springs training center.

Two of the women, lightweight Rashida Ellis and welterweight Oshae Jones, are siblings of professional fighters. Ellis is the sister of Ronald Ellis, a super middleweight with a current record of 17-1-2. Jones is the sister of Osha Jones III, a decorated amateur who spurned a chance to compete for a berth on the Olympic team to turn pro, signing with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom organization where he is currently 4-0 as a junior lightweight. (Here’s another wrinkle that could play havoc with Team USA. How many survivors at the Olympic Trials, if any, will forego their Olympic dreams to turn pro? There were sharks in the water at the Lake Charles tournament such as talent scout Tim Van Newhouse.)

Here are the five winners.

Women

112 pounds — Virginia Fuchs (Nemah, TX)

125 pounds – *Lupe Gutierrez (Sacramento, CA

132 pounds — Rashida Ellis (Lynn, MA)

152 pounds – Oshae Jones (Toledo, OH)

165 pounds – Naomi Graham (Fayetteville, NC)

*indicates they won their bracket in a Box-Off

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