Holland’s Chelsey Heijnen was defeated by Hungary’s Kata Pribojszki at the Copper Box Arena last Saturday to put a serious dent in her Olympic dreams. The 20-year-old was cruelly denied victory and lost the bout on a split decision.
Heijnan came in to the fight in good form, having picked won the 2019 Eindhoven Box Cup, however her opponent proved to be too much for the youngster to handle. Speaking after the fight, Heijnen gave her perspective from the close encounter. “The first round was bad, luckily I exchanged in the second round, but not enough to get the 3-2”
Learning From Defeat
Despite her route to the Olympics somewhat hindered by this fight, Heijnen took the positives from the contest. “The last round I recovered and I’m glad that I can recover and it means that I am progressing, because normally when I feel bad about the first round, the second round goes worse and so on”
After losing in London, Heijnen will now fight at the final qualifying tournament in Paris in June to try and salvage any hopes of competing at the Olympics in Tokyo.
Focusing the future, the Dutch boxer is prioritising her recovery after confirming she headed in to the fight injured. “The next step is to recover completely from my shoulder injury and go to Paris”
Speaking more on the injury: “I was on like 85%, I just missed the rhythm. It was my first fight [of] the year”
Lack Of Rhythm
Heijnen believes that the injury was a huge factor in her narrow loss, suffering from ring rust and having a very limited amount of time adjusting to her gloves. “It impacted it that much, I only had my gloves on for eight weeks, so I’ve only been training for eight weeks, I’m also a weight category lower and [the injury] just made me miss the rhythm”
Earlier on the evening session of the opening day of the boxing Olympic qualifiers, Spain’s Maria Gonzalez recorded a comfortable win over Hungary’s Tamara Tarnoczy in a 5-0 unanimous decision. The Spaniard was in complete control from the first round to the last and wins her first fight in three to proceed.
19-year-old Giordana Sorrentino also set the pace in the women’s flyweight decision after she convincingly beat Germany’s Ursula Gottlieb in a 5-0 unanimous decision. A name to remember, Sorrentino, still a teenager, beat the German to win her fifth fight in a row to comfortably advance in the qualifiers.
