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Fighting
Chance
A er back-to-back heartbreakers,
U.S. boxer Rau’sheeWarren
powers his way into the ring for
a third shot at Olympic glory
BYMICHAEL KAPLAN
A SLIP OF A KID
with cornrows splashed with candy-
red hair dye, Rau’shee Warren strides into the Music
Box theater on Los Angeles’ Hollywood Boulevard,
where he’ll soon be facing off against Khabibulla
Ismail-Akhunov, a little-known 19-year-old from
Kazakhstan. Dressed in sweats, pristine Nikes and
a nylon skullcap, Warren hopes to add a win tonight
to his extraordinary amateur record of 318 and 12. He
has a sparkle in his eye and the swagger of a rising
hip-hop star. And for good reason: Warren is poised to
make history this summer bybecoming thefirst boxer
to represent the United States in three consecutive
Olympic Games.
Now 25, Warren has been boxing since the age of
6, when he followed his big brother to a gym near
their family’s apartment in Cincinnati’s hardscrabble
Westwoodneighborhood. A ernoons of training kept
him off the streets, where, he says, “I saw people get-
ting shot, ge ing robbed, carrying guns—when I was
young, I thought guns were no big deal.” Hi ing the
road for boxing tournaments even before he was a
teenager, Warren gained exposure to different places
and other kinds of lives. Most important, “I liked going
to those tournaments because I always seemed to
come out the victor.”
Did he ever. Warren piled up wins so quickly that
soon a er his 16th birthday, his coach suggested tak-
ing a shot at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. “For
my tryout, I fought the number-one guy and they
had to stop the fight in the second round because I
beat himso bad,” Warren says. The subsequent trip to
Greece, where he was the youngest male Olympian,
put him in good company, he adds. “I saw all these
famous athletes wearing the same colors as me and
representing our country. There were times I wanted
to runup and get their autographs. But I played it cool
and just took pictures,” he laughs.
What Warren had in talent and drive, however, he
lacked in experience: He lost in the first round. But he
vowed to return in 2008, and when he did, it was as
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