Jordan’s Hussein Ishaish punches his way into Olympic boxing quarter-finals

AMMAN — Boxer Hussein Ishaish is into the quarter-finals of the -91kg division at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service. 

The 25-year-old was in stunning form beating Julio Cesar Castillo, 33, of Ecuador, and can look forward to a last eight bout on Friday against Abna Teixeira of Brazil. After losing the first round, Ishaish dominated the last two rounds against the world silver medallist to win 4-0 on the judges’ scorecards, with a fifth judge marking it down as a draw. 

It was a mixed day though for the Ishaish brothers with Ziad, 22, who was considered as one of the favourites for the -69kg title, suffering a surprise defeat to Merven Clair, 28, of Mauritius.

Ishaish appeared to be in control of his bout, and was looking on track for victory after dominating the second round, but the Jordanian delegation was stunned to see the final split going 3-2 in the African’s favour despite two of the five judges showing that Ishaish had won all three rounds.

In the pool, Amro Al Wir narrowly missed out on breaking his 200m breaststroke Jordan record in his heat. Al Wir, who set a new Jordan mark for the 100m on Saturday, finished fourth in his heat in a time of 2:12.61, just short of his best time of 2:12.40.