NESTHY Petecio of the Philippines held her head up high after a stinging loss to Julia Szeremata of Poland in the women's 57kg boxing semifinals in the Paris Olympics at the Roland-Garros Stadium early Thursday morning (Manila time).
The 20-year-old Polish boxer outplayed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics silver medalist in the second and third rounds to escape with a 4-1 victory and reach the gold medal bout.
With the setback, the 32-year-old Petecio settled for the bronze, the country's fourth medal in Paris after the double gold medal performance of gymnast Carlos Yulo and the bronze medal finish of boxer Aira Villegas.
Still, the boxer from Davao del Sur said that she is proud to have represented the flag in the Olympics for the second time.
"I am so proud that I fought for our country, my family, my dream, and my aspiration to clinch the gold. I thought this was my time since I really trusted myself. But it all ends in tonight's result," said Petecio in an interview with One Sports after the bout.
Petecio actually started the fight on a bright note as she used her switch stance advantage to dominate Szeremeta in the first round.
But the young Polish fighter showed youthful confidence as she threw crafty punches that forced Petecio to backpedal in the second round.
With both boxers having an equal chance of advancing to the finals, Petecio and Szeremeta played intensely in the final round but the younger boxer landed more telling blows to get the nod of four judges, 29-28, 29-28, 29-28, 29-27.
Only one judge gave the fight to Petecio at 28-29.
After the announcement of the winner, Szeremeta jumped and raised her fists while Petecio smiled and accepted the defeat gracefully inside the ring.
The veteran campaigner later shared her two cents after the match.
"It's very vague (results), but that's what they see and we can't do anything about it. She (Szeremeta) didn't have any clear shot punch in the third. All my body shots and hooks were there. I really don't know what happened," Petecio said.
To reach the round of four, Petecio scored lopsided victories against Jaismine Lamboria of India, Zichun Xu of China and Amina Zidani of France.
Too early to make a decision yet in her boxing career, Petecio said that she will continue to fight for flag and country for as long as she can.
"Let's see. As long as I can still fight, I can still continue," she said.
All the five Filipino boxers concluded their stint in the Paris Olympics as Eumir Marcial, Carlo Paalam, Hergie Bacyadan made early exits, while Villegas and Petecio bagged medals.
Meanwhile, Dottie Ardina and Bianca Pagdanganan will try to add medals for the Philippines as they compete in women's golf at Le Gold National.
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