Antonio Vargas, Mikaela Mayer fall; USA down to three remaining fighters
And then there were three.
With flyweight Antonio Vargas and lightweight Mikaela Mayer losing their matches Monday, the USA boxing team is down to its final three fighters still vying for medals.
Vargas was hoping to celebrate his 20th birthday with a second-round victory but fell to Uzbekistan's Fazliddin Gaibnazarov.
Mayer competed in her second bout of the tournament as well and lost a close decision to Russia's Anastasiia Beliakova.
Vargas started on the outside to try to catch the elusive Gaibnazarov. He continued to stalk his opponent in the second round but Gaibnazarov built a two-round lead. Vargas was more aggressive in the third round, landing a strong right hand midway through the round that caught the attention of the crowd. Yet he couldn't make up his deficit and lost a unanimous decision to Gaibnazarov.
"He was an awkward fighter, awkward southpaw. I've fought very few styles like that. It was kind of hard to hit him at times," Vargas said. "It's two different styles. His is more European, he keeps his hands out so it's something different for me. It was a good fight. I did what I could.
"I thought it was a close fight. I wasn't mad when he won the fight. God has gotten me this far and I'm real grateful. I'm keeping my head up. I'm just really grateful that I got here. Not too many people get to say they've been in the Olympics. I'm just going to go and support my team."
Mayer started quickly, looking to land clean, straight shots while Beliakova tried to make the contest more rough and tumble. Mayer won the first round on two of the judges' scorecards. She started the second round in a similar fashion and looked to use her movement and clean punching to outbox and outwork the Russian. The majority of the judges give the second and third rounds to Mayer's opponent and she entered the fourth round needing to win the last two minutes to pull into a tie. She landed several clean combinations in the final 120 seconds but only one judge gave her the final round and she lost by split decision.
"I'm definitely disappointed. It was a close fight so it makes it even more disappointing because maybe a couple more combinations could have done the trick," Mayer said. "I thought I might have pulled it off at the end but I also knew that it was close and this is boxing. You let a fight get that close and just don't know who they're going to give it to. I was hoping they were going to give it to me but they didn't."
With defending Olympic champion Katie Taylor losing her tournament opener earlier in the day, it was clear that the women's lightweight division was wide open.
On Tuesday, bantamweight Shakur Stevenson faces Mongolia's Tsendbaatar Erdenebat in the quarterfinals (10:45 a.m. ET), and light welterweight Gary Antuanne Russell takes on another Uzbekistani, Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, at 11:15 p.m. ET. Light flyweight Nico Hernandez has already won a bronze medal for the U.S.
The last remaining U.S. female fighter, Claressa Shields, takes on Russia's Yaroslava Yakushina in a middleweight quarterfinal bout on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. ET. It is the Olympic opener for Shields, the 2012 middleweight gold medalist.
For full tournament brackets and schedule information, click here.
(Photo of Mayer, right, against Beliakova by Julian Finney, Getty Images)