Dominican boxers Yunior Alcantara and Cristian Pinales won the country’s first medals in the Paris Olympics. The boxing wins put the Dominican Republic on the medal list in 59th place.
Yunior Alcantara defeated Billal Bennama from France in the 51 kilos bout to win the bronze. Another bronze medal went to Cristian Pinales in the 80 kilos category when he defeated Nurbek Oralbay of Kazakhstan.
The Dominican women’s volleyball team (ranked 11th by FIVB) moved forward to the second round after defeating eighth-ranked Netherlands 3-1 (25-22, 21-25, 17-25, 26-28). The DR had previously lost to Italy and to Turkey in Group C, regarded as the toughest group. NBC described the Dominican win as “one of the bigger upsets in the tournament so far.” The DR will play Brazil (ranked 2nd in the world) on Tuesday, 6 August.
Marileidy Paulino, running in round 1 and heat 5 of 6 heats, did a time of 49.42 to secure the lead spot in the semifinals. Her personal best is 48.76 and season best 49.20. Her time in the preliminary was the best of all qualifying times. In the 400m Olympic preliminary heats, the top three finishers in each of six races automatically qualify for the semifinals, as well as the next three fastest times, for a total of 18 semifinal qualifiers.
Yeral Nuñez (Tuesday, 6am Dominican time) qualified for the second round in the 400m men hurdles.
The 4 x 400 mixed relay of the Dominican Republic that had won silver in the Tokyo Olympics did not make it beyond the first round. Paulino did not compete in the relay, after early on establishing that her fellow runners did not have the preparation needed for the Dominican Republic to compete for a medal.
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Olympics
5 August 2024