Dominated in the first round, the Frenchman was unable to come back and lost in the -63.5 kg final. As in Rio, the Toulouse native won the silver medal.
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It will be silver again for Sofiane Oumiha, who narrowly lost in the -63.5 kg final against the Cuban Erislandy Alvarez Borger, Wednesday August 7 at the Roland Garros stadiumAlready a silver medalist in Rio, the Toulouse native still gets his revenge, by being a medalist at the Paris 2024 Games, he who had been eliminated in the eighth round in Tokyo by a referee’s stoppage. Already a triple world champion, he thus completes his personal list of achievements and obtains the 51st medal for the French delegation.
“I wanted to finish on a high note, it didn’t go the way I wantedregretted the 29-year-old boxer. I wanted to do well, I wanted to give it my all… I gave myself the means to get there but I can’t be satisfied with a silver medal because that’s not what I came for.” In Paris, the Frenchman had come to look for “something big”to finally close “Tokyo’s Plague”.
But against him, Erislandy Alvarez Borges, the only hope for gold for Cuban boxing at these Games, hit harder and faster. The first round gave him the victory at 5-0 according to the judges’ score, forcing Oumiha to expose himself to come back in the next two rounds. The Cuban finally won by split decision, 3-2, to the great displeasure of the Tricolor, who burst into tears when the winner was announced.
These three editions of the Olympic Games without having accomplished his quest for gold, seem to have got the better of Sofiane Oumiha’s dreams. Los Angeles in 2028, he is not thinking about it. “II’m getting older, it shows even if I have excellent fights, he confided. Now I want to recover and be with my loved ones.” After the zero points of French boxing in Tokyo, the Toulousain allowed the French delegation to find its colours again, after the bronze medal of Djamili-Dini Aboudou-Moindze a few minutes earlier.