Three Americans kept their Olympic hopes alive on Sunday in Baku while one tasted defeated and won’t qualify for Rio here. Antonio Vargas (52kg), Gary Russell (64kg), and Marlo Moore (+91kg) all grabbed victories to reach the quarterfinals with all there winning fairly comfortably. Vargas went the distance but got 30-27 scores from all three judges in a win over Yoel Segundo Finol Rivas of Venezuela. Things went a bit quicker for Rusell and Moore as Russell got a TKO at 2:58 of the first round against Ethiopia’s Girmachew Bahiru Tadesse while Moore beat Dohyeon Kim of Korea 10-9 according to all three judges after the fight was stopped at the end of the first round. Vargas and Russell are among 16 left in their respective weight classes needing to finish in the top five to qualify while Moore has reached the quarterfinals but needs to win his weight class.

Things didn’t go as well for Jonathan Esquivel (81kg) who lost 29-28 according to two judges and won 29-28 according to the third in a 2-1 loss to Mongolia’s Erdenebayar Sandagsuren.

Paul Kroll (69kg) and Cam F. Awesome (91kg) will return to the ring on Monday for their round of 16 bouts.

Preliminaries continue Monday and run through Tuesday to narrow fields down to eight in each weight class for quarterfinals that will take place on Tuesday and Thursday of next week.

Previous 2016 AIBA World Olympic Qualifying Event Coverage:
Preview
Thursday Update
Friday Update
Saturday Update