US Olympic Boxing: Taking a Beating

Muhammad Ali. Joe Frazier. George Foreman. Besides being three of the greatest fighters of all time, what do they have in common? During the '60s, they each won an Olympic gold medal. The U.S. boxing team was once a source of intense pride. Later on, future pro champs like Sugar Ray Leonard ('76), Ray Mercer ('88) and Oscar de la Hoya ('92) cut their teeth on the Olympic stage while mashing the molars of their opponents. Lately? In the past two Olympics, the U.S. has produced a single gold.

And don't expect bling from Beijing. How bruised is U.S. boxing? Standing-eight-count the ways: The day before the opening ceremonies, Gary Russell Jr. collapsed from dehydration while trying to make weight for his 119-lb. division. He missed the weigh-in and was disqualified. Russell's parents blamed USA Boxing, telling the Washington Post that its training program required too much weight-lifting, which put excess pounds on their son, pounds he had to scramble to lose. USA Boxing coach Dan Campbell claimed Russell had trouble sweating, and shedding weight, all week. We'll go with the parents, in a decision. The coaching staff has to make sure its boxers are fit, doesn't it?

Three of the team's remaining eight boxers then lost in the first round. One loss in particular rocked boxing. For four years Rau'shee Warren, a world-champion flyweight and the first Yank in 30 years to fight in consecutive Olympics, had dreamed about the day he'd bring some credibility back to the Americans. "Gold medal," he told TIME before the Games. "Gold medal. That's all that's been on my mind. I know how the Olympics feels. I know the ring; I know the judges; I know how to fight for the judges. I'm ready."

He wasn't. Instead of a spot on the medal stand, Warren wound up sobbing into the arms of a U.S. official, stunned that South Korea's Lee Oksung outpointed him in the first bout. Late in the fight, Warren thought he was ahead, which, given Olympic boxing's bizarre history of judging, is not a smart assumption. During a third-round stoppage, while Oksung tended to his equipment, Warren retreated to a neutral corner. He refused to look at his coaches. Instead, he glanced up at his personal coach, friends and teammates sitting in the stands. He claimed he heard someone from that crowd yell, "Move! Move!" So Warren thought that as long as he didn't get hit, he'd win. His ringside coaches say they screamed opposite instructions. But Warren listened to the voice in the crowd and danced around the ring. He lost 9-8. Decision: coaches.

Warren's debacle illustrates a larger problem for the U.S. team. The fighters have no faith in their coaches. For the first time, USA Boxing required its Olympic team to spend a year together at the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs. Campbell, 65, is a taskmaster. Several boxers tuned him out; some fighters even asked their personal coaches to come to Colorado. They'd sneak out for a few hours to work with them at local hotels.

For a time, light flyweight Luis Yanez went AWOL. He left the training facility in June to attend his high school graduation and never returned. He stopped talking to his coaches and was kicked off the team. Six of America's nine fighters threatened to walk. Yanez, though he's an outspoken critic of Campbell, was re-instated. Warren and another fighter, Javier Molina, also fled the training facility for extended periods.

For boxing to rebound, the U.S must raise the stakes. "To the Europeans, it means something," says Teddy Atlas, the respected coach who's calling Olympic boxing for NBC. "Some of these guys are getting $250,000 for a gold medal. In America, it's a feeder system for the pros." The U.S. must learn some lessons from Beijing. Since Olympic qualifying took place a year before the Games began, the U.S. thought it was wise to have the team bond immediately. But it's not reasonable to expect boxers to devote all of their time to a national coach and to part ways with trusted trainers. "Anytime there's a new system, it's a challenge to find the way to make it work," says Steve Roush, director of sports performance for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Maybe we bring the personal coaches in earlier, give them input from the beginning, so we don't have that we-vs.-them mentality."

Despite the long list of woes, U.S. boxing has a puncher's chance in Beijing. On Aug. 14, welterweight Demetrius Andrade, like Warren a defending world champ, pounded Russian Andrey Balanov 14-3 to slip into his division's quarterfinal round. In the first round, he ducked a few big punches to frustrate Balanov and used a flurry of quick combinations to score 4 points in the last 30 seconds of the second round. The lefty's short jabs and quick feet make him a tough out; of the five U.S. boxers remaining, Andrade is the most likely to medal. Andrade knows the heavy weight of U.S. boxing rides on his shoulders. "I felt a lot of pressure, like, Wow, they took one king [Warren] out of the situation," says the 6-ft. 1-in. welterweight. "But they're not taking me out."

Andrade's success could quiet Campbell's loud critics. For his part, the U.S. coach won't apologize for his strategy. "I told them, on the day they came in to report for the residency program, that I expect this team to make history," he says. History for dysfunction, maybe. In a matchup with past U.S. boxing squads, the Beijing squad would be lucky to survive the first round.