Tomorrow’s Champions Born Here: 20 days to go until the 2016 AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships in Saint Petersburg
October 28th, 2016 / IBA
With just 20 days until the start of the 2016 AIBA Youth World Championships in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, another impressive array of future stars are preparing to launch themselves into the boxing-world’s spotlight. The competition will run from 17-26 November at the 7,000-capacity Sibur Arena and has a rich history of unveiling future champions and Olympic greats. The likes of Cuba’s double Olympic Champion Robeisy Ramirez and the USA’s Shakur Stevenson have both won golds at previous editions.
“The Youth World Championships are an opportunity to see tomorrow’s champions in action, giving the boxing world a privileged view of the next generation of stars,” said AIBA President Dr Ching-Kuo Wu. “Hosting an event of this magnitude in a historic city like Saint Petersburg adds to the sense of occasion, and it is for competitions such as this that these boxers dedicate their lives to our sport.”
“Each of them will know just how important a stage the Youth World Championships is, and while the ten champions will all have achieved something remarkable and taken a big step in their careers, it is important that all of the boxers come away having learned a bit more about themselves and their future.”
China’s APB Light Flyweight Champion Bin Lv proudly refers to his gold at the 2012 Youth World Championships in Armenia as “the moment my career began”. Other notable names to have established themselves as future champions at the competition include Croatia’s most successful Olympic boxer of all time, Filip Hrgovic, French Olympic Champion Tony Yoka and the World Championship silver medalists Joe Ward of Ireland.
More than 400 boxers from over 70 countries have registered to take part in the competition, hoping to emerge victorious and go on to follow in the footsteps of past and current Olympic greats.
