POSTED: Friday September 11th 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Russia send six through to finals

AIBA World Championships

McWilliams Arroyo followed in the footsteps of his compatriot José Pedraza by reaching the finals of the AIBA World Championships in Milan this evening.

After Pedraza’s success at lightweight this afternoon, flyweight Arroyo beat Ronny Beblik of Germany 9-7 after his opponent had tied the bout at 7-7 with a few seconds to go. “We have been waiting for 35 years,” said Arroya. “The last time our country sent a boxer to the finals of the World Championships was in 1974. This is a tremendous success for our nation.”

The other finalist at flyweight will be Tugstsogt Nyambayar, the second Mongolian through. Misha Aloyan of Russia led from the beginning to almost the end, but with 18 seconds to go he was warned and the Mongolian turned it around to win 8-7.

The 21-year-old Vasyl Lomachenko, probably the finest boxer on view at these Championships, had no trouble slipping past Óscar Valdez of Mexico in the featherweight category. The young Ukrainian, the reigning Olympic and European champion, beat the even younger Mexican 12-1 to advance to his second World Championships finals.

Lomachenko’s opponent tomorrow will be Russian Sergey Vodopyanov, another 21-year old and the reigning bantamweight world champion who beat Bahodirjon Sultonov of Uzbekistan 7-5.

The top seed at 64kg, Roniel Iglesias Sotolongo, the Olympic bronze medalist from Beijing, was trying to become the first Cuban to make the finals but he had an extremely powerful opponent in Munkh Uranchimeg. The Mongolian cut Iglesias’s lead to two points twice, but the Cuban - a strong finisher - won the bout 6-4.

The other finalist will be Frankie Gomez of the USA, one of the youngest participants at the World Championships. The teenager from Broadway, California had one of the closest matches of the night with the experienced Hungarian world bronze medalist and European silver medallist Gyula Káté. They were tied at 7-7 with 30 seconds to go when Gomez connected with a left hook - and that was that.

Indian Vijender Singh lost his middleweight semi-final to Abbos Atoev of Uzbekistan, thus repeating his bronze medal he had won a year ago in Beijing at the Olympics. Atoev, the reigning light-heavyweight world champion, was the harder puncher and he won deservedly. The other semi-final saw Andranik Hakobyan become the only Armenian to reach the finals after his 4-3 victory over Venezuela’s Alfonso Blanco.

Osmai Acosta Duarte won the first heavyweight semi-final to become the second Cuban to make the finals, beating Frenchman John M’Bumba 9-2. Meanwhile Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine had seemed in a class of his own until this evening but he met his match in Russia’s Egor Mekhontsev. In one of the best bouts of the championships Mekhontsev beat Usyk 14-10 to become the sixth Russian to reach the finals.

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Keywords · AIBA · AIBA World Championships · boxing · McWilliams Arroyo

Name: Richard Baker
Organization: AIBA - International Boxing Association
Email:
Phone: +41213212777
URL: http://www.aiba.org/

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