The boxing draws are set for all 13 of the sport’s contested events at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Initial bouts see hungry pugilists from 68 nations trading fisticuffs until the field is halved — but not every weight class starts with the same number of challengers, nor will all competitors hit the mat this weekend.
Most boxing competitions begin with a field of 32, though men’s flyweight (50kg/110 lbs), heavyweight (92kg/202 lbs), and super heavyweight contests (92+kg/202 + lbs) — as well as women’s middleweights (75kg/165 lbs) — start with a field of 16. Of those four exceptions, only the heavyweights enter the squared circle this weekend — set to clobber on Sunday.
Super heavyweights won’t duke it out until Monday. The 16 men’s flyweights and 32 women’s featherweights (57 kg/125 lbs) fighting for gold don’t throw punches until Tuesday.
SEE MORE: Boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games
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American knockouts to watch
Eight fighters represent the United States in the City of Light — each of whom is a first-time Olympian.
American lightweight (60 kg/132 lbs) Jajaira Gonzalez is top of the list: The Glendora, CA, native draws first blood against France’s very own Estelle Mossely on Saturday at 3:20 PM ET.
Compatriots Jennifer Lozano (flyweight), Alyssa Mendoza (featherweight), and Morelle McCane (welterweight, 66kg/145 lbs) all compete on Sunday.
Three of the four American men — flyweight Roscoe Hill, featherweight Jahmal Harvey, and welterweight Omari Jones (71 kg/146 lbs) — round out the weekend scattered throughout Sunday.
Super heavyweight and Houston native Joshua Edwards, 24, clashes with Italy’s Diego Lenzi on Monday.
SEE MORE: U.S. boxing team for Paris is all Olympic rookies
Returning rivals shape potential blockbuster battles
Defending super heavyweight champion Bakhodir Jalolov of Uzbekistan placed in the same quarter as Australian Teremoana Junior after the boxing draws were revealed at the North Paris Arena on Thursday.
Uzbekistan’s Jalolov, who is also the 2023 world and 2022 Asian Games champion, beat Teremoana en route to the gold medal at the World Championship in Tashkent last year.
The pair are set to renew their rivalry in the quarterfinals, which Teremoana is intent on winning: “If anyone’s going to be worried, it’ll be him, not me,” Teremoana told reporters.
Another promising name in the category is Britain’s Delicious Orie, who will be taking on Armenian Davit Chaloyan — the 2021 world silver medalist — in the preliminaries.
Julio Cesar La Cruz, champion in light heavyweight in the 2016 Rio Games and in heavyweight five years later in Tokyo, begins his quest for a third gold medal against Loren Alfonso of Azerbaijan. The Cuban will be competing in the heavyweight category.
Rio Olympics light flyweight gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov could meet Puerto Rico’s Juanma Lopez in the second round of the flyweight category.
In the women’s draw, defending women’s lightweight champion Kellie Harrington begins with a bye. The Irish boxer is in the same half of the draw as Brazil’s Pan American Games champion Beatriz Ferreira, whom she beat in the Tokyo Olympics final.
Elsewhere, welterweight boxer Busenaz Surmeneli, who clinched Turkiye’s first-ever boxing gold in Tokyo, could meet world championships silver medalist Imane Khelif of Algeria in the semis.
Two boxers were removed from draw: Ethiopia’s Fikremariam Yadesa Leta failed to provide proper documentation. Tugrulhan Erdemir of Turkiye was replaced by German Magomed Schachidov after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a provisional doping suspension.