Sports

U.S. revamps process of selecting Olympic boxing team

They stood in the middle of the boxing ring at the MGM Grand Garden Theater as thousands bathed them in applause. They all wore child-like grins of disbelief as they waved back to the crowd that was offering them congratulations and best wishes on what is about to come.

They are the members of the 2012 USA Olympic Boxing team and this was the night of Manny Pacquiao’s welterweight championship fight with Tim Bradley. The Olympians were special guests of promoter Top Rank and MGM Grand, another sign of support intended to encourage a team that will be trying to rewrite the dismal showings in recent Olympics.

In the three Olympics from 1976-88 (the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow) the American boxers won 17 gold medals, five silvers and four bronzes. But from 1992-2008, the U.S. earned just three golds, one silver and 10 bronzes. The 2008 team managed only one medal, a bronze by heavyweight Deontay Wilder. It was the worst showing in recent U.S. Olympic history.

But after an overhaul of their preparations plans and qualifications procedures, the 2012 team is optimistic about changing its fortunes in London and charting a new course for sustained U.S. success in future Olympics.

“I think everybody has a chip on their shoulder,” said Terrell Gausha of Cleveland, who will compete as a middleweight. “We want to show the world that we’re something to look at. Everybody is working hard. We’ve got something to prove. We’re building off each other and working with each other and getting better. We want to go out and get these medals.”

Gausha is one of nine American male boxers competing in the Games. Three women are also part of the U.S. team and will compete in the first women’s boxing competition at the Olympics.

Included on the team is Marcus Browne, a light heavyweight from Staten Island who becomes the first Olympian out of a gym founded by Teddy Atlas’ Theodore Atlas Foundation.

“Right now me and the guys have a full head of steam,” Browne said. “I believe in my team and I believe in myself. I believe I’m going to come back with some hardware.”

The London Games will be the first test of a program that has been restructured after a two-year evaluation process conducted by Anthony Bartkowski, the executive director of USA Boxing.

The evaluation, Bartkowski said, revealed two major factors for the dismal showings in recent Olympics: a decline in opportunities for intentional competition and limited training resources.

“If the athletes cannot compete on a regular basis against their counterparts from other countries, they’re not being able to test where their skill development is against the rest of the world,” Bartkowski said.

As a result, Joseph Diaz, a bantamweight from of South El

Monte, Calif., will head to London already having competed against boxers from Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Italy and Great Britain.

“I think I’m getting well adapted

to the internationals and how they move,” Diaz said. “I’ll be ready for the Olympic Games.”

Other changes include more training time with their own personal trainers and access to other professional trainers such as Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, who played host to various Olympians at his Wild-Card Gym in Los Angeles and is planning to make the trip to London. He pushed for more hands on work with the amateurs.

“When we had training camp the first time, the kids wanted to work, but there were a lot of meetings and paperwork,” Roach said. “The kids would ask, ‘When are going to have a real workout?’ That’s what wins medals, hard work. These kids want to work.”

New qualification procedures also were implemented, hoping to get the best fighters on the squad. Winners at the Olympic trials also had to place well at the World Championships to earn a berth on the team. That’s how Diaz, flyweight Rau’shee Warren of Cincinnati and welterweight Errol Spence of Desoto, Texas, made the team.

The remaining seven divisions were reopened with fighters having to compete in at the USA Boxing National Championships in Colorado Springs and the Americas qualifier in Brazil to make the squad. Gausha, for example, did not compete at the trials, but earned his spot by winning gold medals at the USA Nationals and the qualifier.

“I had to fight six times in seven

days [at Nationals], and in Brazil I had to fight four times,” Gausha said. “I had to come from the bottom up, so I earned my spot.”

The restructuring has not come without glitches. Joe Zanders was named the USA Boxing coach in August 2011, but he vacated the position under pressure last March when the USOC became disenchanted with the team’s performance at the 2011 World Championships, where only Warren medaled, capturing a bronze. Zanders has been replaced by Basheer Abdullah, who was head coach for Team USA in 2004.

“I have a lot of faith in Abdullah,” Bartkowski said. “It was too close to the Games to go through a lengthy search process to decide who the next full-time coach is. Following the Games we’re going to open up a national

search and identify who is the next person to fill that role.”

Team USA assembled at the Olympic Training Center on Wednesday. They will stay until July 14 then travel to Bolton, England, where they will train at a gym owned by former junior welterweight champion Amir Khan before moving into the Olympic Village on July 24.

george.willis@nypost.com