The 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships which will be held at the Heydar Aliyev sports and concert complex in Baku between September 22nd and October 10th.
The AIBA Men’s World Championships is the signature event on the AIBA calendar going back thirty-five years to its beginnings in 1974, when the Men’s World Championships made its debut in one of the heartlands of boxing - Havana, Cuba.
Boxers aged seventeen to thirty-four are united every two years to compete against the best in their division from around the world. The athletes participate in the official ten weight categories in accordance with the AIBA Technical and Competition Rules with hopes of the claiming ultimate glory, becoming a world champion. The tournament takes on added significance this year, because all quarter-finalists will achieve the Olympic qualifying standard.
Great Britain is sending a team of twelve, including Andrew Selby and Fred Evans who won gold at the European championships and commonwealth Games champion Simon Vallily.
Bob McCracken, former British middleweight boxer and world title challenger from Birmingham, has said “theWorlds are very much the focus for this year and will be even tougher than normal as it is an Olympic qualifying event.
“All of the top nations will have been working to ensure their boxers are in peak condition for this tournament.
“This will be the biggest challenge the boxers have faced so far but, as long as they maintain the standards of performance they have set for themselves this year, they will have every chance of qualifying for London and securing the opportunity to compete on the greatest stage of all.”
The United States team of ten has been preparing for the event in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Centre, before travelling to their training camp in Azerbaijan. Although this will be the first visit to the men’s World Championships for seven of the team, they are led by two-time Olympian and 2007 World Champion Rau’shee Warren from Cincinati, Ohio and Olympic Team Trials Champion Michael Hunter from Las Vagas, Nevada. Welterweight Errol Spence from Desoto, Texas will also be participating in his second World Championship event.
Tommy Murphy, President of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, believes that Ireland’s ten-man squad have the talent and experience to secure Olympic places. “Our boys are really up for this as I’ve seen so far. You only had to go by last Friday’s bout between Ray Moylette and Ross Hinkley to show that. You could send any of these two kids away and they’d do the job!”
AIBA President Ching-Kuo Wu said earlier this year that “Baku will not host an ordinary world championship. This event will be the first qualifying contest for the 2012 Olympic Games. Sportsmen from more than 100 countries will come to Azerbaijan.”
At the last count, 716 boxers from 126 countries will be competing in the competition in addition to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Benin, Jamaica, Nauru, and Swaziland whose teams were waiting for their applications to be approved by AIBA at the time AZ Magazine went to press.
For further details of the event visit the official website: http://ismayilov.biz/en/ or the AIBA website:http://www.aiba.org/
