U.S. Olympic Team Boxoffs : Hembrick Gets Berth as Allen Pulls Out

Four years ago, several thousand amateur boxers who watched the class of 1984 win nine gold medals at the Los Angeles Olympics set out on the road of dreams, aspiring to gold medals of their own.

This weekend, the road leads inside Caesars Palace Pavilion, where the Olympic team selection process is down to 23 boxers.

This afternoon and Sunday--if necessary--they will finish paring themselves to the final 12.

The middleweight division was decided Friday when “most noteworthy” opponent Darin Allen of Columbus, Ohio, chose not to participate, automatically giving trials champion Anthony Hembrick of Ft. Bragg, N.C., a place on the team in the 165-pound class.

Many wonder if the Olympic team boxoffs will be any more combative than the battle fought this week among USA/Amateur Boxing Federation officials.

So far, they have had some noisy arguments over the merits of the just-appointed Olympic coach, Tom Coulter; the resignation of “special Olympic team adviser” Sugar Ray Leonard; the denial of the appeal by fired Olympic head coach Ken Adams; and the manner in which the federation’s embattled president, Col. Don Hull, has handled all of the above.

And Thursday, it was announced that the weekend lineup had been changed, since three boxers were knocked out of the Olympic picture after flunking drug tests in the Olympic trials tournament last week at Concord, Calif.

Today’s 11 bouts match the Concord trials champions against their “most noteworthy” opponents . . . or, at least, the ones who survived the drug tests.

Trials champions who win today make the Olympic team. If a “most noteworthy” defeats the trials champion, there is a rubber match Sunday afternoon. However, a “most noteworthy” can make it to Seoul, Korea, if he stops a trials champion today with head blows.

USA/ABF rules call for a boxer’s automatic suspension for at least 30 days if a referee stops a bout because of blows to the boxer’s head.

The substitute “most noteworthies” are light-flyweight James Harris and light-welterweight Charles Murray. Allen had been a substitute choice before he decided to pull out. Harris and Murray were semifinal losers in the trials, Allen lost in the finals.

The lineup, trials champions first:

106 pounds--Michael Carbajal (Phoenix) vs. Harris (Washington).

112--Arthur Johnson (Minneapolis) vs. Chris Carrillo (Whittier).

119--Kennedy McKinney (Killeen, Tex.) vs. Michael Collins (La Porte, Tex.).

125--Ed Hopson (St. Louis) vs. Kelcie Banks (Chicago).

132--Romallis Ellis (Ellenwood, Ga.) vs. Lyndon Walker (Washington).

139--Todd Foster (Great Falls, Mont.) vs. Murray (St. Louis).

147--Ken Gould (Rockford, Ill.) vs. Gerry Payne (Washington).

156--Roy Jones (Pensacola, Fla.) vs. Frank Liles (Syracuse, N.Y.).

178--Alfred Cole (Ft. Hood, Tex.) vs. Andrew Maynard (Ft. Carson, Colo.).

201--Ray Mercer (U.S. Army, West Germany) vs. Michael Bent (Cambria Heights, N.Y.).

201 plus--Robert Salters (Ft. Bragg, N.C.) vs. Riddick Bowe (Brooklyn, N.Y.).

One of the most anticipated bouts is at 125 pounds, where Banks, the current world and Pan-American Games champion, was upset at Concord by the 5-foot 4-inch Hopson. Hopson, who turned 17 on June 30, was the Olympic trials’ prodigy. He will be a high school junior in St. Louis in September . . . after the Olympics, he says.

Then there are The Four Horsemen. The Army contingent, all trials champions, represent the four heaviest weight classes. And McKinney, the bantamweight champion, is a recently discharged Army boxer who also wants to be known as an Army man.

But The Four Horsemen informed him that “The Five Horsemen” didn’t quite have the right ring to it.