BEIJING - The closest one-time Hanford resident Shawn Estrada got to his parents Saturday was the two-inch viewfinder on his uncle Sergio Santoyo's video camera.

His father, Juan, who trained him and prodded him and dreamed of such success, should have been there when Estrada stepped through the ropes and into the Olympic boxing ring for the first time. But weakened by liver and kidney problems that doctors say should have killed him six months ago, he couldn't make the 12-hour trip to China from his home in Bell.

His mother Sandy was coming, she promised.

"But she decided to stay home," an aunt, Maria Rodriguez said, "in case something happened to Juan."

So they sent two aunts, two uncles, two friends and a message on a hand-held camcorder in their place.

"Shawn I just want to say I'm so proud of you, mijo," Sandy says in the video. "It doesn't matter if you don't win a medal. You made your dreams come true. I'm sorry, Shawn, that I can't be with you in China. I love you."

Estrada didn't hear those words until after he had rolled over Argentina's Ezequiel Maderna, 10-2, in a first-round match that was more one-sided than the final score would suggest. But he felt their meaning even before leaving his Olympic Village dorm, where he keeps a small shrine to his father.

"It makes me remember him. And all my family," Estrada said. "It's a very inspirational thing.

"I'm fighting for him and my daughter."

But he was fighting in front of six other friends and family members, who braved all manner of personal discomfort to get to Beijing Workers' Gymnasium in time for Estrada's bout, the fourth of the Games.

"We haven't slept," said Rodriguez who, like the others, wore T-shirts with her nephew's likeness as she posed for pictures behind an oversized American flag.

"Oh, and I fell and I got hurt," she added, showed off a blackened pinkie and a scraped knee.

That was more damage than Estrada suffered against Maderna, with the East Los Angeles fighter jumping to a 7-0 lead early in the second period. He then cruised from there, with the Argentine pawing and clinching as he searched in vain for an answer to Estrada's attack.

"I kind of already (knew) what he had, what he was going to bring," Estrada, 23, said of Maderna, whom he beat in last April's regional qualifier to earn his trip to Beijing. "But I kept my composure and finished the rounds ahead on points and I did what I had to do.

"I heard my family. I appreciate the big support. I try to look at them and it makes me fight a little bit more."

Estrada won't fight again until Aug. 16, when he meets Great Britain's James DeGale for a place in the quarterfinals.

(Aug. 10, 2008)