Highlights of the ASBC National Federations – East Timor earned two bronze medals at the very first time in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games

The Asian Boxing Confederation introduces the best moments of its affiliated Asian National Federations launching a new PR campaign, the Highlights of the ASBC National Federations. East Timor, or sometimes called it as Timor Leste, became independent from Indonesia in 2002 and joined to the international boxing events quickly in that year. Their boxing highlight was at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games where East Timor claimed two bronze medals.

East Timor competed first in the Asian Games in the Busan 2002 edition where two boxers, Felix Alexandrino Barreto (51kg) and a former Indonesian national team boxer, Victor Ramos (60kg) represented the country in the multisport event. Further two boxers, such as Yefferdson Isaac Ramos (48kg), and 24-year-old Othnel Negrito Manuel Baptista (57kg) represented the country in the Doha 2006 Asian Games.

East Timor sent record number of four boxers to the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games to China where Abilio Orlando Dos Santos (49kg), Artemio De Conceicao (52kg), Othnel Negrito Manuel Baptista (56kg) and Hendri Martins Borges Pereira (60kg) attended in the boxing event. Da Conceicao and Baptista lost only by points decisions from more experienced rivals which showed their slow progress in the Asian boxing map.

Two boxers from the country as Lionel Parada (56kg) and Elio Edito Da Silva (69kg) represented East Timor in the Incheon 2014 Asian Games. East Timor sent record number of five boxers to the last Jakarta 2018 Asian Games where Jose Barreto Quintas Da Silva (49kg), Joao Barbosa Neto (52kg), Elisio Raimundo Gaio (56kg), Savon Monteiro Ramos (60kg) and Apolinario Da Costa Alves (64kg) competed in the multisport event.

East Timor is very active in the region’s multisport event at the Southeast Asian Games which holds every two years. Their debut was at the 2003 Hanoi edition short after the country’s independence and one boxer Francisco De Santo (57kg) represented East Timor in Vietnam. Abilio Orlando Dos Santos claimed East Timor’s first ever medal, a bronze in the boxing event of the Vientiane 2009 Southeast Asian Games.

Their welterweight (69kg) boxer Elio Edito Da Silva claimed two bronze medals for East Timor in the 2011 and 2013 editions of the Southeast Asian Games. Veteran Hendri Martins Borges Pereira continued his medal series at the welterweight (69kg) in the Singapore 2015 Southeast Asian Games.

Their biggest success in the boxing event of the Southeast Asian Games was at the last edition in 2019 where East Timor was able to get two medals in one event at the very first time. Jose Barreto Quintas Da Silva defeated Cambodia’s Bang Non in the quarter-finals of the flyweight (52kg) and lost to only Thailand’s Ammarit Yaodam in a close semi-final proving his impressive developments. Following Da Silva’s bronze, Federico Soares Sarmento (81kg) bagged their second medal in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. The management of the East Timor’s national team was planning to attend in the 2018 ASBC Asian Youth Boxing Championships and also at the 2019 ASBC Asian Elite Boxing Championships but due to financial reasons, they were not able to send their squads to these continental events to Bangkok.

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