Ukraine unseat Cuba at World Champs

BAKU, Azerbaijan:

The Ukranians are now tops in the world of amateur boxing. They gained this honour on Saturday at the finals of the AIBA World Amateur Boxing Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, when they finished with a medal haul of four gold and one silver.

Cuba, who were unrivalled at the top of the amateur boxing ladder for many years, were next with two gold and one silver while Russia, with one gold and two bronze, host nation Azerbaijan, one gold and one silver, China and Brazil, one gold and one bronze, each followed.

The tournament, which was run over two weeks, was very successful and had 570 boxers from 113 nations representing all the continents.

The English-speaking Caribbean, including a two-man team from Jamaica, was well represented, but it was made clear that they still have a lot of ground to cover, as only three boxers - from Barbados, St. Vincent and the Cayman Islands - made it past the first round. They were, however, eliminated in the second round.

Excellent competition

The finals produced excellent competition in all 10 bouts and ended on a thrilling note when home-town boxing favourite, Magomedrasul Medzhidov, won the super-heavyweight title with a one point victory, 22-21, over the dogged Englishman, Anthony Joshua, who looked dangerous throughout the competition.

Medzhidov, who was seeded No. 2 in the competition, had served notice that he would be the man to beat, when he destroyed the promising Cuban hopeful, Erislandy Savon - nephew of the storied former champion super heavyweight champion Felix Savon - in two rounds in the quarter-finals.

A big man, with good movement and power in both hands, he had a great challenge from Joshua, but with hundreds of his countrymen cheering him on, he pulled off a very close gold medal victory to the delight of the home crowd.

Shortly before this they had seen their other gold medal hopeful, Teymur Mammadov, lose the heavyweight final to Ukranian Oleksandr Usyk.

Brazil won their first ever gold medal at the World Championships when their light welterweight boxer, Everton dos Santos, who was seeded No. 6 in the competition, prevented Ukranian Denys Berinchyk from winning a fifth gold medal for his country, with a close 26-23 victory.

The USA only won one medal, a bronze, and it came from many-time champion Raushee Warren, who lost in the quarter-finals to flyweight champion Aloian Mishe from Russia, the No. 1 seed.

AIBA came up with something new and popular in the competition, when they awarded gold medals to all the coaches of the gold medal winners.