OLYMPICS / Barcelona 1992: Boxing: Reid's tale reaps a grim ending

(First Edition)

ROBIN REID'S challenge for a place in the light-middleweight boxing final fizzled out in a disappointing defeat at the hands of Orhan Delibas, of the Netherlands.

The self-styled 'Grim Reaper' - in reality he is a 21-year-old bookmaker's cashier from Runcorn - looked lacklustre throughout the three rounds and was beaten 8-3 on points. He was 2-1 down at the end of the first round and 4-3 behind after the second.

The only time he suggested he might cause problems for his elusive opponent came with a right-left combination in the second round. But it was back to normal in the third, where Delibas did most of the work and Reid could have no complaints about the result. His reward for a fine campaign was a bronze medal.

Reid said: 'I knew what he was like, what he could do - I knew he would be in and out, counter-punching. I thought the final score was a bit harsh, especially as in the last round I put in a few more punches. It's still a bronze - I wanted to go through to the final but that's the way it goes.'

Elsewhere the boxing, as predicted, is proving to be a private benefit for the Cuban team. They will be involved in nine of the weekend's 12 finals. Five of their team went through on Thursday, another four yesterday. The most impressive of them was the world light-middleweight champion, Juan Lemus.

Roberto Balado, the world super-heavyweight champion, cruised through in a bout which touched the realms of farce at times as Denmark's Brian Nielsen opted for discretion rather than valour and played for laughs.

It has not been a good tournament for the Americans, who have only two finalists. Their third semi-finalist, the flyweight Timothy Austin, was an unlucky loser yesterday. His bout was stopped after he was accidentally thumbed in the eye by the Cuban Raul Gonzalez after 41 seconds.

Hungary's hopes of a good showing in the finals faded. First the world flyweight champion, Istvan Kovacs, lost to Chol Su Choi, of North Korea, who now challenges for his country's first boxing gold since 1976. Then Zoltan Beres was stopped with just 10 seconds left by Rostislav Zaoulitchnyi, of the Unified Team, and Gyorgy Mizsei was simply outclassed by Lemus.