THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 13 : Boxing : U.S. Places Three in Gold-Medal Round

SEOUL —  Three Americans fought their way into the gold-medal round of the Olympic boxing tournament Thursday in a session climaxed by the smashing fists of U.S. heavyweight Ray Mercer.

Mercer, 27, registered a major upset when he stopped Dutch heavyweight Arnold Vanderlijde in the second round.

U.S. light-flyweight Michael Carbajal and U.S. bantamweight Kennedy McKinney also advanced to the gold-medal round. Carbajal won a decision over Hungary’s Robert Isaszegi, and McKinney stopped Thailand’s Phajol Moolsan.

Americans Romallis Ellis and Ken Gould lost decisions, and will have to settle for bronze medals.

After Thursday’s morning session, the United States had positioned itself for these Saturday gold-medal bouts:

Carbajal vs. Ivailo Hristov (Bulgaria), 106 pounds; McKinney vs. Jorge Julio Rocha (Colombia), 119; Mercer vs. Baik Hyun Man (South Korea), 201.

The United States, with eight boxers in the semifinals, had hoped to match or better the 1976 team’s five-gold finish at Montreal. Coach Ken Adams’ team can still surpass the the Montreal team’s performance.

The United States won nine golds at the East Bloc-boycotted 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Though most countries are competing here, Cuba, a world power in boxing, is not.

The United States could place six boxers into the 12 gold-medal bouts Saturday and Sunday if light-middleweight Roy Jones, light-heavyweight Andrew Maynard and super-heavyweight Riddick Bowe win Thursday night.

Mercer, who had only two international bouts before the Seoul Games, may emerge from as a hot pro prospect. His leaping, accurate punches reminded many of Mike Tyson.

But for a round and a half, Mercer, 6-feet 1-inch and 196 pounds, looked as if he had met his match against the 6-7 Dutchman known as the Towering Tulip.

Vanderlijde, a bronze medalist at the L.A. Games, is a skilled boxer, with a jab that seems to go halfway across the ring. The much shorter-armed Mercer hadn’t come close to solving that jab midway through the second round.

Mercer had been lunging at Vanderlijde, and had been caught often with the jab. Mercer’s punches either missed or were glancing blows, and he seemed to be well behind on points after the first round.

But he solved Vanderlijde with a leaping right hand that caught Vanderlijde on the jaw, causing him to fold up in a neutral corner.

Now in command of his stricken foe, Mercer charged after him. Two hard right hands brought another standing-eight from referee Abdul Hani of Iraq.

Then, with U.S. flags waving in two sections of the bleachers and the U.S. team delegation on its feet and cheering, Mercer ended it.

A left hook put Vanderlijde on his back, automatically ending the bout.

Mercer will face South Korea’s Baik for the gold medal. Baik stopped Andrzej Golota of Poland in the first round Thursday.

“The Korean won’t be no problem, the crowd won’t be no problem,” Mercer said. “I don’t hate nobody, but I’ll do whatever I have to to get that gold medal.”

McKinney, a bantamweight, said he was ready for the history books after his relatively easy win over Moolsan, who was stopped at 2:32 of the first round. “First, let me say that if I win the gold I’ll be the first American bantamweight champion in the Olympics since 1904, and that’s just what I’m going to do,” he said.

Sure enough, the last U.S. bantamweight gold medalist was Oliver L. Kirk, at the 1904 Games in St. Louis.

McKinney handled Moolsan with ease. . McKinney and assistant coach Hank Johnson expressed surprise that the Thai came out for the opening bell cautiously.

“We thought he’d come out and get after Kennedy,” Johnson said.

“When he didn’t, Kennedy adjusted very quickly.”

McKinney said he saw it all in a dream.

“In the dressing room, I was punching coach Johnson’s mitts and I had a deja vu,” he said.

“Suddenly I saw the whole thing. . . . I was in a major competition and I was stopping a guy in the first round. And I did.”

“When I saw he wasn’t going to come after me, I went to my jab, to set him up. After the knockdown, he got up blinking his eyes, and I knew he was hurt.”

McKinney drew the softer end of the bantamweight bracket. He’s had the easiest time of it of all the Americans, stopping an overmatched Guatemalan in his first preliminary round bout, getting a walkover in the second round due to an opponents’ arm injury, and then cruising to a 5-0 quarterfinals decision over Kenya’s Stephen Mwema.

“The tougher guys have eliminated themselves in the other bracket,” he said. “And I’ve been blowin’ my guys away.”

Ellis seemed resigned to defeat, as did Adams. Both left the ring quietly.

“I thought it was a close bout,” he said afterward, “I was expecting a 3-2, either way, not 5-0 against me.

Ellis lost by one point on three scorecards, and by two and three on two others.

At that point, the U.S. winning streak of 13, dating to Todd Foster’s loss Sunday, was snapped.

And when Gould lost his 4-1 decision to Kenneth Boudouani, in somewhat of a surprise, the United States had suddenly dropped two straight.

Gould looked like a solid pick to reach a gold-medal bout. For starters, he’d beaten Boudouani at the 1986 world championships on a 4-1 decision. And the French boxer didn’t seem to match up with Gould, who is much quicker afoot.

But the longer-armed Frenchman kept Gould at long range for the most part, preventing the Rockford, Ill., boxer from his specialty--piston-like combinations to the body.

Bowe reached the semifinals round with an easy, but sloppy, one-round win over Czechoslovakia’s Peter Hrivnak.

Bowe had started off laughing against the Czech and finished that way. In the first clinch of the bout, Bowe looked over to Adams in his corner and appeared to laugh. Then he mugged his opponent and performed some windmill-like, slow-motion bolo punches.

Then Adams barked from the corner, and Bowe got serious. In about half a minute, the Czech was on the deck.

Of his chances of winning against the Soviet Union’s Alexander Miroschnichenko in his semi Thursday night, Bowe said: “Hey, I’m after the gold here. Who remembers bronze or silver medalists? Do they get dinner engagements? No.”

Assistant coach Larry Ramirez also expressed some anger over Bowe’s antics.

“We’re unhappy with Riddick, totally. He was playing around with a guy he knew nothing about.”