Spotlight on Tajikistan’s Abubakr Ghafurov, the Best Youth Male Boxer in Colombo

Tajikistan’s Abubakr Ghafurov not only claimed a gold medal at the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships in Colombo, Sri Lanka but he became the Best Male Youth Boxer of the entire competition.

Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, French Polynesia, IBA-India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, IBA-Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam were the 23 participating nations in this championship.

Abubakr Ghafurov was born in the capital city in Dushanbe on May 23 in 2007 and he began boxing in an early age in Tajikistan which is the most developing Central Asian country.

Ghafurov joined the competition of the 2023 ASBC Asian Junior Boxing Championships as member of the Tajikistan national team in Astana and during his first international event he bagged a bronze medal.

Short after his first Asian Championships, he was quarter-finalist at the 2023 IBA Junior World Boxing Championships in Yerevan, Armenia and only the eventual silver medallist, Ivan Siniak of Belarus was able to stop him.

He joined the youth competitions on January 2024 and he became silver medallist at the welterweight (67kg) in the Tajikistan Youth National Championships. Ghafurov lost to only another ASBC medallist boxer, Mukhammadsulton Sultonov in the final of the national event.

He defeated Ziyoratsho Kosimov in the final of the middleweight (75kg) at the Tajikistan Youth National Championships this April which was their main selection competition for the ASBC Asian Youth Boxing Championships.

Abubakr Ghafurov advanced to the finals in Colombo and he started the first round of the middleweight (75kg) final with heavy hooks against Kazakhstan’s Zhassulan Berdaly. The Tajik kept his Kazakh opponent on long in the first round and his movements were good enough to win the opener in the scorecards. Ghafurov was smart in this final bout and his punches were quicker than Berdaly’s ones therefore he claimed Tajikistan’s second gold medal in Colombo and also the specific award.

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