The four days of preliminaries finished at the ASBC Asian Elite Boxing Championships

The preliminaries at the ASBC Asian Elite Boxing Championships finished in the city of Chiang Mai, North Thailand where four competition days have been concluded.

The Uzbeks made strong impacts in the recent days in Chiang Mai and their Shodiyorjon Melikuziev was planning to continue their winning path. The ASBC Asian U22 medallist Uzbek had a hard job against Thailand’s Nathapong Thuamcharoen in the first round but he could still increase his rhythm to take a comfortable advantage on the judges’ scorecards after six minutes of fight. The 22-year-old Thai moved forwards more in the third round but the Uzbek minimumweight (48kg) boxer won their contest by unanimous decision.

Kazakhstan’s World Champion Makhmud Sabyrkhan moved back to the bantamweight (54kg) after the Paris Olympics and that category is the best for his physical skills and height. The 23-year-old Kazakh played with his opponent from Chinese Taipei, Lai Yan Lin and after the third standing count, the referee stopped their contest.

Ukraine’s former World Champion Mariia Bova moved up to the welterweight (66kg) but she was much taller than Vietnam’s Nguyen Thu Trang, one of the newcomers in the national team. The 36-year-old Ukrainian has still the strong motivation to win medals in major championships and she operates from longer range in her bouts. Bova was better in the first but the 21-year-old Nguyen reduced the fighting distance effectively in the second but the Ukrainian secured the victory in the next tight bout of the session.

Kyrgyzstan lost two youngsters from the competition therefore after Anvarzhan Khodzhiyev and Bekzat Ergeshov, their Asian U22 medallist Islam Torobayev tried to do better performance against a promising boxer from Bangladesh, Mohammed Utsob Ahmed. The South Asian opponent was competitive in the first round from counter-attacking range but Torobayev calmed down in the second and he eliminated Ahmed in this bantamweight (54kg) preliminary bout.