Subaru Murata and Ren Umemura won the key matches at the Japanese National Selection Tournament in Tokyo

Photo Source: Shunya Seri

The Japanese Boxing Federation arranged intensive sparring between their bests to pick the bests to represent them in the upcoming AIBA World Boxing Championships. Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games bronze medallist Subaru Murata and 22-year-old Ren Umemura were also selected following the sparring sessions.
The sparring matches were held in the Ajinomoto National Training Centre in their capital city Tokyo in the recent days. Japan selected their team to the upcoming AIBA World Boxing Championships which will be held in Yekaterinburg, Russia on September 7-21 and could be the highlight of the year.
Rio 2016 Olympian Arashi Morisaka did not recover to the start of the sparring matches while Japan’s biggest star AIBA Youth World Champion Hayato Tsutsumi had serious stomach problems by the time of these challenges which means they will be missing the AIBA World Boxing Championships.
ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships bronze medallist Tosho Kashiwasaki, Rio 2016 Olympian Daisuke Narimatsu, ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships silver medallist Sewon Okazawa and Yuito Moriwaki are all experienced boxers and high hopes for Japan in the upcoming international events.
Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games bronze medallist Subaru Murata fought out his place to the national team earlier this year and attended in the ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Bangkok on April. The 23-year-old bantamweight (57kg) boxer had to meet with experienced Kenji Fujita which was a sensational sparring match between the two top hopes. His opponent was bronze medallist in the Amman 2013 ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships and attended high number of events.
Ren Umemura was bronze medallist in the 2013 ASBC Asian Confederation Junior Boxing Championships in Shymkent and he had good results also as a youth boxer. He achieved bronze also in the 2016 Asian Student Boxing Championships in Dushanbe and attended international events in Bulgaria, in Thailand and in Kazakhstan as well. The 22-year-old boxer moved up to the light heavyweight (81kg) and had tough sparring against all of his main rivals as Hayato Nitta, Takuro Kurita and Ryudai Onikura in Tokyo.

List of the Japanese team in the AIBA World Boxing Championships
52kg: Tosho Kashiwasaki
57kg: Subaru Murata
63kg: Daisuke Narimatsu
69kg: Sewon Okazawa
75kg: Yuito Moriwaki
81kg: Ren Umemura

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