Team USA, Team Turmoil

There will be 284 amateur boxers in Beijing over the next month trying to live a lifelong dream. Eight will be trying to alter a nightmare which has already begun anew even before these Olympic Games have.

The United States has won only three gold medals in boxing over the past 20 years, a number so miniscule it has been exceeded not only by amateur boxing powers Cuba and Russia but also by Kazakhstan (four) and tied by Thailand. Now a new team of kids averaging barely 20 years old is in China trying to reverse what has been a slow decline in our Olympic fortunes in boxing amidst controversy and a near mutiny against tough-minded head coach Dan Campbell.

One long-time critic of Campbell’s was Gary Russell, Sr., whose son Gary, Jr. collapsed in his room at the Games after a training run Thursday designed to help him make a 119-pound weight limit he had not reached in six months with the U.S. team in Colorado Springs. Never less than 125 pounds during that time, Russell was one of six U.S. boxers who all but mutinied against Campbell’s strict demands and training methods. Now he’s out of the Games, where boxing competition is set to begin Saturday, and serves as a reminder that once again U.S.A. boxing is more about controversy and collapse than medal count.

Campbell has been critical of at least six of the team’s nine fighters and blames them for what grew into a near mutiny in June when three of the nine went home from Colorado Springs and failed to return as scheduled. Nineteen year old Luis Yanez was temporarily thrown off the team and labeled a “liar’’ by Campbell during the affair. Ultimately he appealed and he was returned to the team amidst a growing public split between the athletes and Campbell..

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