BEIJING • Team USA light welterweight Javier Molina wasn’t cleared to box in the second round of the Olympics until less than 24 hours before his bout against 2004 bronze medalist Boris Georgiev of Bulgaria.

“You know it’s been one thing after another,” coach Dan Campbell said after Georgiev’s 14-1 decision over Molina on Sunday. “They discovered the day before yesterday that he’s got a hole in his lung and it’s getting air inside of his skin. He wasn’t cleared to box until 8 o’clock last night. So it has just been a series of things.

“It’s a hole in the lung where air seeps out and gets trapped in the skin. They gave him some medication and rest. He had to lay around for like two days. He got the weight down last night. He did the best he could. I really don’t think he could’ve done any better.”

Standing in the bowels of Worker’s Gymnasium, Campbell said Molina has been training with the condition and that doctors only recently discovered it.

Team doctor Bill Kuprevich said if there was a hole in Molina’s lung, it was a small one.

“He had strep infection in the throat,” Kuprevich said. “He also had what’s called subcutaneous emphysema in the neck. It means that there is air under the skin.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, subcutaneous emphysema “occurs when air gets into tissues under the skin covering the chest wall or neck. This can happen due to stabbing, gun shot wounds, other penetrations or blunt trauma. Air can also be found in between skin layers on the arms and legs during certain infections, including gas gangrene.”

The NIH also states that “most of the conditions associated with subcutaneous emphysema are very severe and require hospitalization.”

Molina already was lacking against the vastly more experienced Georgiev. The health condition only added to his misery.

Georgiev dominated the fight from the start, using his superior quickness to cruise to an 8-0 lead after the first round. It was 11-1 after the third round.

“I just felt too slow,” Molina said. “By the time I was in, he was out.”

The bout was a 13-point margin that easily showed Molina’s sluggishness.

Through tear-stained eyes, Molina said he didn’t know what had happened to him. He repeated the sluggishness mantra several times.

“I think what we saw in there was a young man with a grown man,” Campbell said. “That was the difference.”

At 18, Molina is the youngest member on the Olympic boxing team. He said he will talk with his father and with his coach about the immediate future.

“It didn’t go how I planned it to go, but it was a good experience for me,” Molina said.Andrade advancesWelterweight Demetrius Andrade defeated Georgia’s Kakhaber Jvania 11-9 to advance to the second round.

“It was pretty good for my first fight, but I was a little rusty,” Andrade said. “I knew he’d be tough. I fought him before, in the world championships.”

From left, Serenity Puglis, Samuel thompson, and Brandalynn Boneta, all 7, played in a fountain during the farmers market in downtown Fountain. Photo by