The Olympic dream of American boxer Nico Hernandez ended Friday when the 20-year-old Wichita, Kan., fighter fell in the semifinals of the light flyweight division to Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekistan by unanimous decision.
Hernandez will leave Rio De Janeiro with a bronze medal, the first for the USA men since heavyweight Deontay Wilder won bronze in Beijing in 2008. But his hopes of going farther never materialized against the older veteran Dusmatov, who outboxed the American from the start, then danced around the ring in the third round to avoid Hernandez's attacks. Dusmatov, a southpaw, was the smaller but quicker of the two and was the aggressor for most of the three rounds.
The final scores were 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 for Dusmatov, who will face Yerberejen Martinez of Colombia for the gold medal on Sunday.
"He was just the better man today," Hernandez said. "I'm definitely disappointed, I didn't want to go home with a bronze medal. I wanted to go home with a gold.
"I know win or lose, my supporters back home are proud of me."
An accidental head butt in the second round opened up a nasty cut above the left eye of Hernandez – this is the first year in Olympic boxing that headgear is not being used for the men – and it seemed to affect him some the rest of the way, as the referee had to stop the action in the third round momentarily to have a doctor check out the cut. Hernandez was allowed to finish the fight. He said his vision went blurry for awhile from the bleeding but it got better.
"It didn't really affect me too much," he said.
Hernandez, who will turn professional after the Olympics, was at least proud to end the medal drought for the U.S. men's team.
"I ended the drought of medaling, it was definitely a good feeling being the first one in eight years but as I said before, I didn't want to go home with the bronze medal.
In the fight following Hernandez's loss, American lightweight Carlos Balderas lost by unanimous decision in his quarterfinal match to Lazaro Alvarez of Cuba, who was the bronze medalist in London in 2012.
