BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS: DAY 3 : Marquez Overcomes a Tall Order for U.S.

Raul Marquez, his power-punching game tied up in knots by a thin, long-armed Nigerian, barely survived his opening-night bout in the Olympic boxing tournament here Monday night.

The 5-foot-9 fighter from Houston, rated among the harder hitters on the U.S. team, trailed the 6-3 David Dafiagbon after one round, 2-1, was at 4-4 after two--and only because he picked up the pace of an artless, almost dull match in the final round did he escape with an 8-7 victory in the 156-pound division.

That improved the U.S. record to 3-0 in the tournament, with three more Americans boxing today: bantamweight Sergio Reyes, middleweight Chris Byrd and heavyweight Danell Nicholson.

It was a frustrating match for Marquez.

“He’s ranked in the top 10 (10th in International Amateur Boxing Assn. ratings; Marquez is eighth), so I knew he was a tough guy,” Marquez said.

“But the guy is so tall, he should be playing for the Dream Team. It’s hard to fight tall guys--they can even hurt you with their elbows.”

Joe Byrd, the U.S. coach, agreed.

“That guy was so tall he could have leaned over and kissed Raul on the top of his head,” Byrd said.

“Raul was tight and tense, he’s had to wait a long time for this, and I’m sure he’s happy to get a tough one like this behind him. He should have been leading with his left hand (Marquez is left-handed) like I told him, but he was so nervous, he forgot.”

With amateur boxing’s new computer scoring system, the running score of each bout is posted between rounds on a scoreboard near ringside. Byrd, who doesn’t want his boxers to know if they are ahead, tried to block his boxer’s sight line as he sat on his stool, but Marquez peeked.

“I looked,” he said. “I knew what the score was. I knew it was close. That’s why I turned it on in the third round--I knew I needed that third round bad.”

Byrd didn’t even know what the final score was until he reached the interview area with Marquez.

“Eight to seven? That sounds about right,” he said.

Unlike many African boxers in the tournament who show solid ability early but tire quickly, Dafiagbon didn’t begin to fade until the last half of the third round.

“Even though he was holding on, and was really tired at the end, I still felt it was really close,” Marquez said.

Dafiagbon started with a laugh and a sneer. After Marquez had thrown his first half-dozen punches, the Nigerian seemed to be laughing.

Marquez missed badly from outside and when he tried to move inside, Dafiagbon ensnared him, octopus-style, nullifying much of Marquez’s main attack--his body punching.

Marquez caught Dafiagbon on the chin with a left hook with 35 seconds left in the first round, apparently the only punch the judges gave him, because he was down, 2-1, after the round.

The crowd of about 1,500 started cheering midway through the second round, and Marquez said that it picked him up.

In any event, Marquez had a much better last half of the second, scoring with a left hook with 20 seconds to go.

Dafiagbon landed his best shot of the bout five seconds into the last round, a right uppercut that caught Marquez as he was moving in for one of the rare times in the bout.

Most of the time, Dafiagbon backed up speedily at the slightest sign of aggression from Marquez. He flicked out tame left jabs and sometimes a sneaky right when Marquez tried to get inside.

Marquez, in what is considered the easier half of the light-middleweight bracket, will box again next Monday against Rival Cadeau of the Seychelles.

But a possible quarterfinal opponent is Norway’s Ole Klemetsen, another tall, long-armed fighter who defeated Marquez last November at Sydney in the World Championships, 27-17. Klemetsen also won Monday night.

In the top half of the bracket is the world champion, Cuban Juan Lemus, who scored a 23-13 decision over Dafiagbon at Sydney. But Marquez defeated Lemus, 24-19, at Tampa, Fla., in March in the World Championships Challenge matches.

A rematch of Lemus and Marquez for the gold medal would be a meeting of two of the tournament’s most powerful punchers.

Marquez acknowledged that Olympic pressure might have disrupted his planned attack, the left-handed lead.

“I just forgot,” he said. “The U-S-A yells, all the press, the Olympics. . . . “

But Marquez is satisfied.

“I couldn’t ask for a better bracket,” Marquez said. “I got the toughest guy out of the way tonight, and now it’s on to the gold.”