Highlights of the ASBC National Federations – China’s first ever two-time Olympic Champion is Zou Shiming
The Asian Boxing Confederation introduces the best moments of its affiliated Asian National Federations launching a new PR campaign, the Highlights of the ASBC National Federations. China’s golden era was in the 2000s when the country hosted the Olympic Games in Beijing and their Zou Shiming became Asia’s first ever two-time Olympic Champion.
China competed first in the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games where two of their boxers represented the huge country. Since then the country attended in all of the boxing events of the Olympic Games and they had strong delegations especially at the Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro editions.
The golden era for Chinese boxing came when the International Olympic Committee has been chosen Beijing as host city for the 29th Summer Olympiad in their Congress in 2001. China has the population of 1.4 billion and their government and National Olympic Committee invested huge amounts of money and efforts to build up strong teams for the Beijing Olympics including in boxing as well.
China hosted the AIBA World Boxing Championships in the city of Mianyang in 2005 which delivered their first gold medal in that level. The country proved amazing performance in the women’s international events and hosted the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships two-times. The first was held in the city of Ningbo in 2008 and the second became the lone Olympic qualification event for the London 2012 Olympic Games which took place in Qinhuangdao.
China’s most successful boxer in their boxing life, Zou Shiming was born in the city of Zunyi on May 18 in 1981. He started boxing relatively late in 1997 at the age of 16 and following his national titles, he achieved silver medal in the 2001 East Asian Games in Osaka, Japan which was his first international tournament out of China. He competed also at the Busan 2002 Asian Games and several other competitions to increase his level.
Zou Shiming qualified for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games where he acquired China’s first ever Olympic medal in boxing. His bronze was a great success for him on the road to the Beijing Olympics. His next peak performance was at the 2005 AIBA World Championships in Mianyang City where he triumphed over Hungary’s tough Pal Bedak in the final of the light flyweight (48kg) on home soil.
Zou Shiming defended his throne in the Chicago 2007 AIBA World Championships which showed his strong potential before Beijing. Following his foot injuries in early 2008, he was able to win the most expected Olympic title in the Beijing Olympic Games where he triumphed over Mongolia’s Purevdorj Serdamba in the final.
He decided to continue his amateur boxing career and the returning Zou was unstoppable at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou and at the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Baku. China’s most successful male boxer in the history of amateur boxing, Zou Shiming had great moments in the London 2012 Olympic Games where he had a seriously hard final against Thailand’s Kaeo Pongprayoon. He was able to defend his Olympic throne following his first victory in Beijing and became the first ever Chinese and Asian boxer who could win two Olympic titles in boxing.
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