BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 10 : De La Hoya Wins, but Isn’t Happy

In the 259th bout of the Olympic boxing tournament Monday night, lightweight Oscar De La Hoya of East Los Angeles put on display the best left jab yet.

He also had the worst judging yet.

The judges didn’t take the bout from him, but after two rounds it appeared they were trying hard.

De La Hoya beat Bulgaria’s Dimitrov Tontchev, 16-7, ensuring himself of at least a bronze medal. He advanced to the semifinals and a bout against South Korean Hong Seung Sik on Thursday.

De La Hoya peppered Tontchev’s face with so many hard jabs that some expected a 10-1 or 12-1 score after one round.

But when De La Hoya’s 2-1 lead was flashed on the scoreboard near the ring, howls erupted from his cheering section in the balcony and from other U.S. fans attending.

The judges were from Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Argentina, Ireland and Canada.

Tontchev was an easy mark. He is right-handed and stood straight up in front of De La Hoya. De La Hoya appeared to hit Tontchev with 12 jabs, all flush in the face, during the last minute of the first round.

Round two was a repeat. Tontchev threw half as many punches as De La Hoya, and the winner’s jab never stopped connecting. In the last 45 seconds of the second round, 10 De La Hoya jabs were counted. Yet after two rounds, De La Hoya’s lead was 7-6.

Coach Joe Byrd was nearly speechless.

“He was hitting the guy with nice jabs. . . . I can’t understand it,” he said.

“You want him to keep doing that in any bout, but I told him after the second he’d better start going to his combinations.”

De La Hoya did. A left jab, however, is supposed to count the same as any other punch.

Among the stunned was Joel De La Hoya, the boxer’s father, who sat in the balcony and shook his head over the scoring of the first two rounds.

“It was incredible,” he said. “When I saw the 2-1 after the first, and then the 7-6, I wondered: ‘What’s going on here?’ Those jabs, Oscar was snapping the guy’s head back. How could the judges not see those punches?”

Said Oscar: “After the first two rounds, I was worried that they were out to get me, too,” he said, referring to the controversial decision against U.S. light-flyweight Eric Griffin on Saturday.

“I hit that guy with at least 15 jabs and snapped his head back with them,” he said.

“When I saw that 2-1, I was mad. The judges here don’t know what they’re doing. They just don’t like the USA.

“After the first, I should have had a 20-1 lead, but maybe the judges just let that little zero fade away.

“This may have been a gold-medal bout for me. I don’t expect the Korean will be as tough as the Bulgarian. I’ve knocked out two Koreans before, so I’m confident going into it.”

Almost lost in the controversy over the scoring was a victory by middleweight Chris Byrd during the afternoon session. Byrd, clinching at least a bronze medal, defeated Algerian Ahmed Dine, 21-2.

Today, the four Americans left in the quarterfinals will be trying to reach the medal round.

Flyweight Tim Austin will box Tanzania’s Benjamin Mwangata, and super-heavyweight Larry Donald will box Cuba’s Roberto Balado in the afternoon session. Then light-middleweight Raul Marquez will take on Orhan Delibas of the Netherlands, and light-heavyweight Montell Griffin will box German world amateur champion Torsten May.

Also on Monday, Cuba went five for five and increased its tournament-leading record to 26-1.

The good-natured dispute between Byrd and his boxing son, Chris, continued when the U.S. middleweight easily advanced to the semifinals.

Byrd has had the easiest time of any of the U.S. boxers. He opened with a 21-3 decision over Mark Edwards of Great Britain, then defeated Alexandre Lebziak of the Commonwealth of Independent States, 16-7.

And once again, despite his father’s instructions to the contrary, Byrd spent most of the fight on the ropes, counterpunching and holding his hands low.

This time, the coach was asked, if his son wins a gold medal, will he stop telling him to box in the center of the ring and keep his hands up?

“If he wins the gold by doing that, then he did it on his own,” his father said. “I never taught him any of that stuff.”

Byrd will box Canada’s Chris Johnson. The Canadian drew a first-round bye, then beat his next two opponents.

Johnson, a big hitter who is being courted here by pro boxing managers such as Shelly Finkel, knocked out Bulgarian Stefan Trendafilov with eight seconds left in the first round Monday.

The Byrd-Johnson bout also shapes up as a battle of the mothers.

Johnson’s mother, Rose Byrd, can be heard in every section of the arena when he son boxes. Same for Patricia Johnson.

“I hope they don’t have them sitting next to each other,” Chris Byrd said.