Kimbrough has eye on the gold

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, April 3, 2002 | 10:16 a.m.

USA Boxing is looking for some big hitters to alleviate America's gold-medal drought, and Verquan Kimbrough would like to oblige.

Kimbrough, 19, has the strength and determination that could make him an answer to one of the country's glaring, sports-related needs: an Olympic gold medalist.

The U.S. has no reigning gold medalist in boxing at this time and has had only two gold-medal winners in the last 12 years. Kimbrough, a native of Aliquippa, Pa., is aware of the shortage and would like to correct the situation by not only making the 2004 American team but by taking home a gold medal when the Games are held in Athens, Greece.

"I know I have the potential to be a gold medalist and I'd like to do that for my country," Kimbrough said Tuesday after polishing off Chris Rudd in 36 seconds during their first-round match in the Everlast U.S. Men's Championships at Caesars Palace.

Kimbrough, a lightweight, can't be accused of being recklessly ambitious. As the reigning 2001 U.S. Challenge gold medalist and as the top-ranked fighter at 132 pounds for more than a year by USA Boxing, there's no disguising his potential.

He's 90-5 as he enters a second-round match today and he hopes to be crowned a national champion when the event concludes Saturday.

"As you can tell, winning's important to me," he said after leveling Rudd, of Covington, Tenn., with a brisk right-left combo early in their bout. Rudd was floored by the blows and the referee quickly stopped the fight.

With U.S. National Director of Coaching Emanuel Steward saying the country needs some knockout performers if it wants to regain its lost Olympic prestige, Kimbrough is training accordingly.

"I believe our country's fighters have to get stronger," he said. "I don't mean by bulking up, but by getting physically stronger through the proper workouts, diet and discipline.

"I'm working on getting stronger because I know firsthand that I have to."

He was beaten -- "pushed around, fighting a grown, mature man," he said -- during an international meet in Ireland last year, and the experience has had an impact on him.

"I train right, I eat right and I do the right things," Kimbrough said. "In other countries, if they want you on the national team they take you from your family and you do nothing but train.

"American fighters still stay at home, and that means you've got to have discipline. It means watching what you eat and watching yourself around girls."

Kimbrough said "90 percent" of his time is occupied by his desire to make the U.S. Olympic team. He's trained, in part, by Tom Yankello, who has a hand in training International Boxing Federation lightweight champ Paul Spadafora.

Kimbrough has only six years' of boxing under his belt but he accentuated his training for this week's tournament by attending camps in Houston and Miami before coming up to Las Vegas.

"I have a knockout punch and I can fight inside," he said of his style, knowing it's the knockout-punch portion of that equation that really appeals to Steward and those associated with the sport in America.