Japan’s World Champion Sewon Okazawa had a tough final at the 53rd Golden Gong Tournament

The 53^rd edition of the Golden Gong Tournament was held in Skopje, North Macedonia in the previous days where several of the stars competed for the medals.

The Golden Gong Tournament is North Macedonia’s main international event and some of the Paris Olympians used the competition as one of their stoppages to the Games.

Poland’s Sandra Drabik has been preparing to the 2^nd World Olympic Boxing Qualifying Event with full speed and the veteran boxer delivered a surprise in Skopje. The Polish was smaller than Kazakhstan’s World silver medallist Karina Ibragimova but her attacking tactics paid off in their meeting.

North Macedonia’s Alen Rustemovski progressed so rapidly in the previous one year and he defeated top boxers in the international stage. The 20-year-old boxer had a surprise success over Japan’s Asian Games silver medallist Shudai Harada at the men’s featherweight (57kg).

Slovenia’s Nik Nikolov Veber has eight years of international routine and he returned to the squad with an impressive success over Greece’s Dimitrios Nikolaou at the light welterweight (63.5kg) in Skopje.

Kirill Globenko was born in Kazakhstan but his family moved to Poland and he represents his new country in the competitions. The Polish welterweight (67kg) boxer had a difficult but successful final against North Macedonia’s Alim Nasufi in Skopje.

Japan’s World Champion and Asian Games winner Sewon Okazawa had a tough light middleweight (71kg) final against Hungary’s Dominik Enekes who defeated one of the top Russians at the Great Silk Way Tournament in Azerbaijan a few weeks ago. The Japanese boxer launched body shots but he had to do his very best to beat the nine-years-younger Hungarian in Skopje.

There was an important selection bout between two Bulgarian super heavyweight (+92kg) boxers, the ex-Cuban Yordan Alain Hernandez and the veteran Petar Belberov. The latter made a revenge due to a previous loss and Belberov’s strategy delivered from him a 4-1 split decision success in their meeting.