Galal Yafai won Britain’s first boxing gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, beating Carlo Paalam of the Philippines 4:1 in the flyweight final.
Yafai, the 28-year-old younger brother of two professional boxers from Birmingham, is a two-time Olympian who had an impressive run in Tokyo. He finished by knocking down Paalam in the first round of the gold medal bout.
Britain’s powerhouse team has won two silvers and two bronzes to go with Yafai’s gold in Tokyo. Middleweight Lauren Price fights Sunday for another gold.
Paalam fell just short of winning the first Olympic boxing gold medal in the history of the Philippines after knocking off defending gold medalist Shakhoibidin Zoirov on his way to the final. The Filipino team is still heading home from Tokyo with two silver medals and a bronze after winning just five boxing medals in its entire previous Olympic history.
Ryomei Tanaka of Japan and Saken Bibossinov of Kazakhstan won bronze medals. Yafai beat Bibossinov in a thrilling semifinal.
In the men's middleweight final, Brazil's Hebert Sousa knocked out Ukraine's Oleksandr Khyzhniak to win the title.
Krasteva wins women's flyweight gold
Stoyka Krasteva of Bulgaria won the women’s flyweight boxing gold medal. She beat top-seeded Buse Naz Cakiroglu of Turkey 5:0.
The 36-year-old Krasteva, a 2012 Olympian, dominated her final four opponents to win Bulgaria’s fifth-ever boxing gold and its first since Daniel Petrov in 1996. Bulgaria had won just one bronze in boxing since 2004.
Cakiroglu lost the final decisively but won Turkey’s third-ever silver medal in boxing and sixth medal overall. Teammate Busenaz Surmeneli has another shot at Turkey’s first boxing gold in the welterweight final later Saturday.
Huang Hsiao-wen of Taiwan, the 2019 world champion, and Tsukimi Namiki of Japan won bronze in the lightest women’s weight class.
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