Champions are crowned and honored at the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Tashkent
May 14th, 2023 / Tashkent 2023
Champions are crowned and honored at the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Tashkent
Seven more champions are determined following the second part of the final fights at the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships in Tashkent. All 13 newly crowned boxers were honored on the stage by IBA President Umar Kremlev.
Team Uzbekistan topped the medal table with 5 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals. Second place went to Kazakhstan with 4 gold and 1 silver, and Russia finished third with 2 gold and 4 bronze medals. Uzbekistan received the Best Team award. The Best Boxer was declared Hasanboy Dusmatov from Uzbekistan. The best referee and judge is from Afghanistan Tamim Sultani.
In the first fight of the day, the fully-packed Humo arena witnessed a Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan duel in 54kg where Makhmud Sabyrkhan challenged host nation’s Oybek Juraev in a high-speed bout. Sharp punches from the Kazakh boxer gave a lot of difficulties to his rival in the first round. Sabyrkhan threw short series and counter-attacked timely, changing his stance from time to time, landing body shots and punches to the head. In the third round, Juraev received two standing counts and Sabyrkhan dominated the fight by a unanimous decision. Silver medallist in Belgrade 2021, he managed to win long-awaited gold.
Another silver medallist from Belgrade, Abdumalik Khalokov from Uzbekistan started strongly against Saidel Horta from Cuba in the 57kg division. In the second round, the referee invoked a standing count and Cuban received a warning for holding. In the strong exchanges, Khalokov threw several precise punches and won the fight unanimously. Khalokov changed his silver to gold with this victory to the excitement of the local crowd.
In the 63.5kg division final, Ruslan Abdullaev from Uzbekistan fought against Chinzorig Baatarsukh from Mongolia. Following two intense rounds, Abdullaev led with a slight advantage in their competitive fight. He was stronger in the third round, and the Uzbek boxer was declared a winner by a unanimous decision.
In the next fight of the 71kg weight category, two Asian champions from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan challenged each other for a gold medal, Aslanbek Shymbergenov against Saidjamshid Jafarov. Shymbergenov’s punches were stronger and more straight to the point in both starting rounds. Jafarov moved forward but was more chaotic and not precise. Kazakhstan’s boxer was more cold-blooded and more precise in his attacks, while he was successfully defending. Shymbergenov celebrated a unanimous victory.
Tanglatihan Tuohetaerbieke from China went into the ring against Nurbek Oralbay from Kazakhstan in the 80kg category. The boxers started slowly trying to catch each other on mistakes. In the first round, Oralbay landed several precise series and took the lead on judges’ scorecards. In the second round, the Chinese looked better, and the judges’ opinions on this close fight split. In exchanges of the third round, Oralbay could manage to impress the judges more than his rival, and he was declared a winner by a split decision of 4:1.
Reigning World champion in 86kg Loren Alfonso Dominguez representing Azerbaijan met with Sharabutdin Ataev from Russia. Ataev was more active in the ring with serial combinations in the first two rounds, and in the third round, he made Domingues start his attacks first. He scored higher in every round and was declared a winner by a split decision of 4:1.
With efficient combinations, Aziz Abbes Mouhiidine from Italy started his fight in 92kg against Muslim Gadzhimagomedov from Russia. In a close fight, Gadzhimagomedov led in the first round, but Mouhiidine managed to level it in the second. In the close high-speed contest, where heavyweight boxers showed impressive skills, both threw many serial punches. The bout review confirmed the close fight with a final score of 4:3 (1:1BR) to Gadzhimagomedov.
The winners are awarded $200,000 USD, while silver medallists are to receive $100,000 USD and each bronze medallist gets $50,000 USD. The overall prize fund of the World Championships is $5.2 million USD. The athletes in second place were awarded a special trophy “Will to Win” named after Soviet boxer Andrei Borzenko.
