(NOV 18)
(COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.) - Day
three of 2014 Elite Women’s World Championships competition in
Jeju, Korea, started off in winning fashion for Team USA on
Tuesday but unfortunately the American squad couldn’t maintain
the momentum in their final two bouts of the day. Light
flyweight Alex
Love (Fort
Carson, Colo.) won her tournament opener in the third bout of
the afternoon session to advance on to the next round.
Bantamweight Christina
Cruz (New
York, N.Y.) and lightweight Queen
Underwood (Seattle,
Wash.) both dropped their preliminary round contests,
eliminating them from the tournament.
Love, a member of the U.S. Army’s
World Class Athlete Program, continued the success the U.S. team
enjoyed on Monday in her bout with Australia’s Lauren
Camilleri. She
won almost every round on the score cards, using her aggressive
style and crisp punching to claim a unanimous decision victory
over Camilleri and move on to a second round bout with
Indonesia’s Aldriana
Sugoro of
Indonesia on Thursday afternoon.
Cruz competed later in the
afternoon session, facing off with Bulgaria’s Stanmira
Petrova in
bantamweight competition. The American boxer looked to outbox
her Bulgarian opponent in the contest but she wasn’t successful
on the scorecards. Cruz lost a split decision to Petrova to end
her run at a return to the medal podium.
Underwood also took on a
Bulgarian opponent in her first bout of tournament action,
battling Svetlana
Staneva.
The 2012 Olympian suffered a split decision loss in the first
bout of her fourth world championships to eliminate her from the
competition.
Underwood’s two Olympic teammates
will compete in Wednesday’s action as 2012 Olympic gold
medalist Claressa
Shields (Flint,
Mich.) makes her tournament debut in a bout with Uganda’s Hellen
Baleke at
approximately 3:15 p.m. local time (1:15 a.m. ET). 2012 Olympic
bronze medalist Marlen
Esparza (Houston,
Texas) will box in her second bout of the tournament in a
match-up with Kazakhstan’s Merjen
Ishanguliyeva at
approximately 2:15 p.m. local time (12:15 a.m. ET).
Light heavyweight Heidi
Henriksen (St.
Louis Park, Minn.) will close the day for the United States
squad in a bout with Uganda’s Diana
Turyanabo at
approximately 8:30 p.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET).
All of the tournament action is
being live streamed at
www.aiba.org.
U.S.
Results
106 lbs/48 kg: Alex
Love, Fort Carson, Colo./USA dec.
Lauren Camilleri, AUS, 3-0
119 lbs/54 kg: Stanmira Petrova, BUL, dec. Christina
Cruz, New York, N.Y./USA,
2-1
132 lbs/60 kg: Svetlana Staneva, BUL, dec. Queen
Underwood, Seattle, Wash./USA,
2-1
