U.S. Amateur Boxing Championships : Olympic Officials Impressed; Young Fighters Prevail

When the 100th U.S. Amateur Boxing Championships began Monday, it shaped up as a tuneup for the Olympic team trials for two world champions and a super-heavyweight prospect from New York.

But by the time they reached the finals Friday night at the Broadmoor Hotel’s 2,500-seat hockey rink, it looked more like a Mr. Teen-Age America contest.

In the 12 championship bouts, there were seven battling teens--a 16-year-old, four 17-year-olds and two 18-year-olds. When featherweight Carl Daniels of St. Louis defeated Frank Pena of Aurora, Colo., Friday night, the combined ages were 33.

And by Friday night, national champions Kelcie Banks and Kenneth Gould were on their way home, and Riddick Bowe, the super-heavyweight from Brooklyn, was watching from the bleachers.

Gould was taken out in the quarterfinals on a disputed low-blow call by a referee, and Bowe was knocked on the seat of his pants in the semifinals by Robert Salters.

Banks, 22, was knocked out of the tournament in the semifinals by Daniels, just one of several fast-rising young phenoms in amateur boxing. The same was being said Friday night about power-punching bantamweight Jamal Hinton, 18, who also won a title.

U.S. Army sergeant Ken Adams, who will be head coach of the 1988 Olympic boxing team, and other U.S. amateur boxing officials said Friday they’d seen more Olympic team-level talent rise to the surface in this tournament than they’d expected.

“I’ve seen some very talented, and very tough young men here this week, more than I expected to see,” Adams said.

This much can be said, three-and-a-half months before the Olympic trials: There are no amateur superstars around, such as Class of ’84 gold medalists Mark Breland and Pernell Whitaker. However, the sudden appearance of talents like Daniels and Hinton will make the Olympic trials more competitive than anyone would have imagined.

First- and second-place finishers at Colorado Springs this week were automatic qualifiers for the July 5-10 Olympic Trials at Conford, Calif.

The 1988 U.S. amateur champions:

106--Michael Carbajal, Phoenix.

112--Tony Gonzales, Kent, Wash.

119--Jemal Hinton, New Carrolton, Md.

125--Carl Daniels, Florissant, Mo.

132--Romallis Ellis, Ellenwood, Ga.

139--Todd Foster, Great Falls, Mont.

147--Alton Rice, Fort Hood, Texas.

156--Frank Liles, Syracuse, N.Y.

165--Jerome James, Sioux Falls, S.D.

178--Andrew Maynard, Fort Carson, Colol.

201--Ray Mercer, U.S. Army, West Germany.

201-plus--Robert Salters, Fort Bragg, N.C.

For the world-class threesome that stumbled here, there will be no free trip to Concord, said Jim Fox, executive director of the USA Amateur Boxing Federation

He said Banks, Gould and Bowe would all have to compete in other qualifying tournaments to reach Concord, even though they could be invited summarily as at-large entrants. There will be 8 boxers in each of 12 weight classes at the trials.

Daniels, the 17-year-old who shocked Banks Thursday, won a close--and disputed--4-1 decision Friday night. In the second round of the 125-pound championship bout, Daniels was knocked down at the end of the second round by a looping left hook by the crowd favorite, 16-year-old Frank Pena of Aurora, Colo.

Daniels got up and though still rocky early in the third round, seemed to win it when he staggered McKinney twice late in the last round.

Daniels, who won’t be 18 until Aug. 26, is now five for five in major amateur boxing tournaments. Beginning in 1985, he’s won Junior Olympics, National Golden Gloves, Junior World Championships, an East Block invitational tournament victory in Hungary and, now, a national championship.

The only question is, can he beat Banks again at Concord?

His fifth major tournament win in a row was by the skinniest of margins. Daniels won by one point on three cards and by two on the fourth. the

What would have been the comeback story of the tournament came up short in the evening’s first bout, the light-flyweights. On a rainy 1984 summer night in Washington, D.C., James Harris ran his motorcycle into an oncoming car, and doctors at first told his parents he might never walk again.

After six months in traction and a year of physical therapy, Harris was walking.

And on Friday night, he was fighting for the national 106-pound championship. He lost to favored Michael Carbajal of Phoenix on a 5-0 decision. Carbajal, stronger and busier, landed more scoring blows but Harris landed the harder shots.

Gonzales won the flyweight (112) championship with a fast third round finish over Lionel Odom of New York. Facing a taller, elusive boxer, Gonzales was frustrated in the first two rounds, missing with wild hooks and hitting after the bell.

Odom, it seemed, needed only an even third round to win but he seemed to tire and Gonzales was clearly in charge at the finish.

The Olympic coaching staff thinks Hinton could be a phenom. To some, he’s a 5-7, 18-year-old Evander Holyfield. Friday night he showed off the knockout power in his left hook by sending Kennedy McKinney of Killeen, Tex., sagging into the ropes at the end of the second round.

Hinton, probably the hardest hitter in the lighter weight classes in the Olympic team picture, seemed to have won the first two rounds, but McKinney won the third and protested bitterly when the 3-2 decision was announced.

Three judges had Hinton on top, 59-58, 59-57, 57-57 (with Hinton designated the winner); two others had it for McKinney, 59-56, 58-56.

In the light-welterweight bout, most boxing people would have figured Chris Bird of Flint, Mich., a decided underdog. His mother was in his corner, with his father. Nonetheless, Bird fought well against the stronger, harder- punching Foster, from Great Falls, Mont.

Possibly America’s weakest Olympic weight class now is light-middleweight (156 pounds), and neither Frank Liles nor Tim Littles changed anyone’s opinion in their final Friday. In what at times looked more like Wrestlemania, Liles won when Littles was disqualified in the third round after his third warning for holding.

Not many hold high U.S. Seoul hopes in the 165s, either, but Sioux Falls, S.D., cop Jerome James showed impressive power when he stopped Anthony Hembrick of Fort Bragg, N.C., in one round. James put the favored Hembrick flat on his back with a left hook, and the bout was stopped after he got up and went into a sleepwalker’s dance.

The light-heavyweight championship (178) was a U.S. Marine Corps-U.S. Army matchup and this soldier took no prisoners. Maynard, a solid gold medal candidate, dealt out a lopsided beating to Joseph Pemberton of Camp Lejeune.

Referee Gene Reece, who is notorious for letting one-sided beatings go too long, was in top form. Not until Pemberton’s cornermen climbed up on the ring apron did Reece stop it, in the third round.