Olympic Dream Ends – Jennifer Lehane hits a great Chinese wall
Jennifer Lehane hit a great wall of China in Paris this morning and found passage to the bantamweight quarter-finals blocked.
Making her Olympic debut, the late to boxing Irish champion was outpointed by an extremely talented and effective Chang Yuan.
The Olympic Youth medal gold medal winner had too much by way of experience and skill for the 25-year-old with a brilliant story.
As a result, she scored a unanimous decision over Ireland’s first-ever Olympic bantamweight. Southpaw Lehane was full of effort and applied herself from the first to the last bell but just came up against a better opponent on the day.
Chang Yuan got her jab into play first and used it as a platform to dominate the first stanza. The well-supported Ashbourne native was full of industry but the Olympic Youth gold medal winner was confident, assured, busier, and took the round across the board.
The 25-year-old got up on her toes in the second and started to pick nice southpaw one-twos across the first minute. However, the Chinese star, the world number 8, showed her quality, adapting to wrestle back control, win the round and put one foot into the next round.
Lehane went into the last needing a knockout to win but stopping a fighter of Chang Yuan’s quality was never going to be easy, particularly when the Asian Games medal winner was boxing with extreme confidence and on the top of their game.
As it was the Chinese fighter took the last to secure a unanimous decision.
Speaking directly after Lehane was still able to smile, and celebrate her unique and inspiring journey to the Olympics.
