Читать книгу Berserk. The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero онлайн

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Young love didn't interrupt Valero's amateur boxing career. He won eighty-six bouts, losing only six. He won three consecutive national amateur championships. He'd found his calling.

He journeyed to Argentina to qualify for the 2000 Olympics. He lost on points to Brazil's Valdemir Pereira. After that, he took the wrong bus home from the Caracas airport. He found himself in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Bandits took his passport, his money, even his silver qualifying medal. He cried for two weeks.

Valero would, however, win the 2000 Central America and Caribbean Championship in Caracas, defeating Francisco Bojado for the gold medal. Bojado would be Mexico's Olympic representative that year in Australia. Beating him must have given Valero some satisfaction. The fight was close, but Valero stunned Bojado in the final round. He impressed Bojado's trainer, Joe Hernandez. “He was,” Hernandez would say years later, “a monster.”

As he entered manhood, Valero stood a bit over five feet six, and weighed around 126 pounds. He was the size of Antonio Esparragoza, the power-punching star from Cumaná. Esparragoza had represented Venezuela at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, turned pro the year Valero was born, and enjoyed a four-year reign as WBA featherweight champion. Valero admired Esparragoza but told his coach that he wanted to be even greater, to be world famous like Muhammad Ali. It was a grand vision. Even the best Venezuelan fighters rarely fought outside of Latin America.