By Sudipto Ganguly
TOKYO (Reuters) – At 35 and after three unsuccessful bids to get to the Olympics, middleweight boxer Aaron Solomon Prince – Trinidad and Tobago’s oldest fighter at the Games – is not ruling out another bid for glory in Paris after his first-round exit in Tokyo.
Prince tried but failed to qualify for the last three Games, and refused to entertain thoughts of going professional.
His spot at the quadrennial showpiece in Tokyo was finally confirmed in May when he qualified by virtue of his Pan American ranking.
“I never thought about turning pro, my dream was always to compete at an Olympic Games,” said the Trinidad and Tobago defence force member.
“That’s what has driven me on for all these years. I’ve just kept that as my goal, and now I’ve made history as the oldest boxer from Trinidad at the Olympics.”
He said he still has no plans to turn pro, even after a 4-0 defeat to Slovakian Andrej Csemez on his Olympics debut at the Kokugikan Arena.
“I am just taking it one fight at a time, one competition at a time. But who knows, maybe I will be back for Paris. I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll be 38 then, so maybe. We’ll see.”
Prince was pleased to finally become an Olympian but was not too happy with the result of his debut bout against Csemez, 12 years his junior.
“I cannot believe that I did not win that fight,” Prince said. “He won the first round, but I thought I won the next two rounds. To lose by the scoreline seems unfair.”
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
