Russell Advances to Final Despite a Lackluster Effort

HOUSTON, Aug. 24 -- The announcer was calling Gary Russell Jr.'s name, saying he was going to the championship round of the Olympic trials, but the fighter did not wear a smile. Nobody smiled. Among the USA Boxing people who held him as one of their best hopes for the Beijing Olympics, everyone did the same thing Friday night as Russell as he stood in the ring with a California fighter named Ronny Rios.

They rolled their eyes to the heavens and sighed with relief.

Russell, from Capitol Heights, beat Rios to get out of the loser's bracket but it was not pretty. He did not show the speed and daring that made him the top 119-pound fighter in the United States the past two years. He looked tentative, held his punches and did not attack Rios until the third round when tournament officials told him he was down three points.

But in the end he prevailed 22-19, mostly by ducking Rios's repeated hooks and landing enough punches to survive. This now sets up a rematch Saturday night with Dallas fighter Roberto Marroquin, who beat Russell on the first day of the tournament. Russell has talked endlessly about wanting to knock Marroquin out to atone for the defeat. Russell must beat Marroquin both Saturday and Sunday to make the Olympic team. If he loses once he is out.

"I'm still disappointed in my performance," he said. "I could have done a lot better."

His father and coach, Gary Russell Sr., was so angered by the effort that he took his son out a back door of the George R. Brown Convention Center on Friday to lecture him about the need to use the quick combinations of punches that has always been his strength. Gary Jr. has rarely shown the same assertiveness this week. His father worries that his son is too concerned with trying to accumulate points and thus is not fighting as freely as usual.

"He's very tentative," said Robert Martin who also coaches Russell. "He's not putting his combinations together, he's trying to punch a little too hard and not letting the punches go."