Cuba's Joahnys Argilagos (right) sent Galal Yafai home
Galal Yafai suffered an agonising split decision defeat to world champion Joahnys Argilagos at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
The 23-year-old Yafai was up against the light-flyweight division's No 1 seed in Cuba's gifted 19-year-old and was edged out 29-28 29-28 28-29, despite taking the fight to his opponent throughout.
There was little mystique about Yafai's tactics, as he came out determined to walk his man down. Seizing the initiative was always going to be a risky business against a man of Argilagos' talents, and the world champion served a warning with an early two-punch combination.
The pair exchanged solid left hooks in the opening minute but it was the Cuban's work that looked the neater as he used his classy-looking reflexes to pick some accurate jabs off the back foot. Yafai tried to up the ante again with a committed surge but Argilagos rubber-stamped the first round with a late combination.
Galal Yafai (left) lost to Joahnys Argilagos at the Olympics in Rio
There was further entertainment in the second as Yafai burrowed forward again. Argilagos found several neat short lefts but was forced to hold in the second half of the session with the underdog looking to up the tempo once again.
Slight controversy followed, when Argilagos was allowed a pair of free shots on Yafai with the female referee failing to make her instructions clear. Yafai responded upon the official resumption with a decent straight left only to be tagged again before the bell.
The Cuban continued to hold on the inside with little intervention from the referee but was eventually dragged into some heavy exchanges that seemed to leave both men tiring. An eye-catching right uppercut from Yafai proved the shot of the final round but it was to be too little too late and he was left shaking his head when the scores were confirmed.
Argilagos, who is nicknamed 'The Tiny Giant', moves on to the quarter-finals having been granted a bye in the first preliminary round.
A despondent Yafai told the BBC afterwards: "There are no positives. I've lost so there are only negatives. I thought I did enough."
There was similar heartbreak for Irish hope Paddy Barnes, who was eliminated from the same competition by the same method as Spain's Samuel Carmona advanced.
Resource: skysports.com
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