RENO, Nevada -- Qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team is difficult in all sports. In track and field, athletes generally must finish in the top three in an event at the Olympic trials (provided they have met Olympic standards). Swimmers must finish in the top two at their U.S. trials. And those athletes must do so in events where tenths or hundredths of a second can mean the difference between a trip to the Olympics and an emotionally wrenching trip back home.
And then there is boxing. Which is even tougher ... and more complicated.
"Of all the sports, boxing is probably the most difficult," light flyweight contender Nico Hernandez said. "If you go to nationals in track and win, you're on the Olympic team. In boxing, you've got to win nationals and then you've got to go to internationals. And you've got to [succeed] there."
There are more layers involved -- we'll get to that a little later -- but that's basically how qualifying works for U.S. fighters. To reach Rio, virtually every American boxer must first win at the U.S. men's trials, where only one boxer in each weight class can advance toward the Olympics. And to do so, they must fight and win a minimum of four bouts over six days. If they lose in the winners bracket and fall into the challengers bracket, they could fight six to seven bouts in a week.
"There is a lot of pressure mentally because losing [a bout at the trials] brings your whole ego down, it brings your confidence down," Team USA boxer Brian Ceballo said after losing in the welterweight winners bracket Wednesday to Ardreal Holmes. "It's up to the boxer and the people around the boxer to keep him or her in their place to actually qualify for the Olympics."
Ah, but winning the U.S. trials doesn't guarantee you a spot in the Olympics. After winning here, you must then finish high enough at an international event as well, one of which will be the Americas qualifier in Argentina this March.
"There are three different international qualifications," Ceballo said. "So if we don't qualify for the first one, then we have to qualify at the second one, and if not that one, then we have to qualify at the third one."
The reasoning behind the need to earn a spot internationally is that while there are 10 weight classes in men's boxing, the Olympics limit the total number of boxing spots to 250 because too many boxers means too many matches and too many blows to the head.
"It's a multiday tournament, and you want to be careful how many bouts you have," said Mike Martino, the executive director of USA Boxing. "Because you have to think about boxer safety. And now without headgear, you have to think about how many bouts you have your boxers participate in."
"If you have boxers from 200 countries in 10 weight classes, you've got 2,000 boxers. You can't fit all those people into the Olympics," heavyweight contender Cam Awesome said. "What they do is break it down to the top 20 in each weight class. So winning here doesn't mean you go to the Olympics.
"It's a struggle. We don't fight for money. And it's tough doing this full time."
It's possible the number of men's slots could decrease at the 2020 Olympics, if the number of weight divisions for women boxers is increased from three to five. Which means qualifying would just get that much more difficult. And the U.S. men's team already has been unrepresented in a weight class or two at the past three Olympics.
Meanwhile, the winner in the lightweight class at these U.S. trials will not represent America in Rio. Which brings up another layer in the qualification process.
There are other methods for qualifying for the Olympics, via high enough placing at the World Series of Boxing or at the world championships, though those usually are not the paths for Americans. Lightweight Carlos Balderas became the first and only American to ever qualify that way this fall. Because the top two finishers in the WSB had already qualified for Rio, Balderas and another fighter were elevated from lower places into the Olympics. Having already qualified, Balderas is not fighting at the trials.
That means the winner of the lightweight division at these trials cannot compete at the Olympics unless Balderas cannot fight in Rio for some reason. This does not sit well with rising 18-year-old star Teofimo Lopez, who will fight in the 132-pound lightweight final this weekend. Nor his father, Teofimo Lopez Sr.
"It's not real," Lopez Sr. said. "It's not real that if you don't win here, you can go to the Olympics."
"The Olympics trials has always been that you have to quality here in order to be an Olympian," Lopez Jr. said. "If this keeps going on, it's going to get worse. I feel sorry for the younger ones who will have to go through it. When you're young, your dream is to win a gold medal."
Still, Lopez might fight at the Rio Olympics anyway, albeit for another country. While he was born in New York and grew up in the U.S., his parents are from Honduras, so he can compete for that country instead. He is definitely considering that, though his dream would be to compete for the United States.
As you can see, qualifying for the Olympics in boxing is complicated. And not easy.
"It's a monster," super heavyweight contender Marlo Moore said. "I love USA Boxing, but once you're in USA Boxing, you're part of a family, so you have to go in there and take it. We got to nationals in January, and I've been training every single day. I've got my daughter, my family and I've got to do it for them."
"It's harder than anything else. It's one of the hardest sports in the world. You can't imagine what I've gone through."