When Ireland’s defending gold medalist and top seed Katie Taylor fell in the quarterfinals, Estelle Mossely(24) of France became the favorite to win women’s lightweight (60kg) gold. Looking back, maybe Mossely always should have been the favorite.
It was France's Estelle Mossely who denied Ireland's Katie Taylor a sixth straight gold medal at the AIBA World Championships in
May 2016, beating Taylor in the semifinals, and going on to win gold herself.
(And the month before, Taylor had lost to Yana Alekseevna of
Azerbaijan, her first defeat in five years.)
So it is now France's Estelle Mossely who
is to be called the best women’s lightweight in amateur boxing, ending a
10-year run where Ireland's Katie Taylor could claim that for herself.
France's Estelle Mossely’s golds
at the Worlds and the Olympics this year make it clear that she is now
the cream of the crop.
In Friday’s Olympic gold medal
match, France's Estelle Mossely defeated Jinhua Yin of China, who had defeated Mira Potkonen
of Finland in the semifinal.
Finland's Mira Potkonen was the fighter who eliminated
Ireland's Katie Taylor in the quarterfinals.
It was really a clear win for France's Estelle Mossely, even
though scorecards came back 39-37 in her favor on one, 39-37 in Yin’s
favor on another, and then the third even at 38-38, with the judges then
choosing Mossely as the winner.
France's Estelle Mossely’s path to the gold
medal started with a first round bye, then a quarterfinal win over young
Italian Irma Testa, and a semifinal defeat of Russia’s Anastasia
Belyakova, the opponent she had beaten in May to win the World
Championships. That fight ended prematurely, when Belyakova suffered an
elbow injury in the first round of action.
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