Rakib narrowly misses out on a medal
Collected Photo
Bangladesh’s lone medal hopeful boxer, Rakib Hossain, was knocked out of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games after losing to Australian boxer Jai Dickson in the quarterfinals. Despite putting up a spirited fight in the ring, Rakib fell short of reaching the semifinals. A place in the semifinals would have guaranteed him at least a bronze medal.
The men’s 55 kg bout was held at SEC Hall 5, where Australian boxer Dickson, fighting from the red corner, dominated from the opening round. He took the first round by a unanimous decision from all five judges with a score of 10 to 9.
Dickson maintained the same attacking approach in the second round. Rakib, fighting from the blue corner, was forced onto the back foot as he struggled to deal with a series of powerful punches from the Australian. He was counted twice during the round. The referee stopped the contest at 2 minutes and 14 seconds of the second round, considering the safety of the boxer. Dickson was declared the winner under the "Referee Stops Contest" rule.
After the successive failures of Bangladesh’s other athletes at the ongoing Games, Rakib had emerged as the country’s only remaining medal hope. However, that campaign also came to an end with the quarterfinal defeat. Earlier, Imranur Rahman and Shirin Akter in athletics, Samiul Islam Rafi in swimming, and Zinat Ferdous in women’s boxing were all eliminated in the opening stages of their respective events.
