If a year ago it was possible to say that Russian sport was slowly returning to the world stage, now it is time to say that everything is happening rapidly and incredibly powerfully. A clear confirmation is the brilliant performance of Russian boxers at the World Championships in Dubai, where absolutely all team members will come home with medals. And there is a chance that most of them will return with gold. Phenomenal performance.

Records and dominance

The World Boxing Championship in the UAE has become one of the largest in history due to the wide representation of countries, a solid composition of participants and impressive financial prizes. So such a successful performance by the Russians, who, by the way, are competing in Dubai with national symbols, is doubly pleasant.

Our guys started with a unique achievement, when their entire team reached the semi-finals of the World Championship. Edmond Khudoyan, Vyacheslav Rogozin, Vsevolod Shumkov, Evgeny Kool, Ismail Mutsolgov, Sharabutdin Ataev, David Surov, Bair Batlaev, Andrey Peglivanyan, Ilya Popov, Sergey Koldenkov, Dzhambulat Bizhamov and Muslim Gadzhimagomedov – all of them did not leave their opponents a chance. For the first time in history, one entire country reached the semi-finals.

Next came the battle for the finals. Hardly anyone could have imagined that almost the entire team of Russians would be able to achieve something absolutely outstanding.

But already the beginning of the day gave hope for something magical. Khudoyan calmly dealt with Temirtas Zhusupov in the semifinals. Obviously, such a start inspired other Russians to do great things. Then Rogozin did not let Asilbek Zhalilov from Uzbekistan breathe, and after him Shumkov won the third victory for Russia.

A difficult fight was expected between Kool and Hovhannes Bachkov from Armenia. The Russian was not an obvious favorite, but in reality he turned out to be much stronger and achieved a well-deserved victory. Then our guys acted surprisingly powerfully and confidently. At some point, there was even a feeling that Russia would be represented in the finals in its entirety.

Vyacheslav Rogozin / Photo: © Russian Boxing Federation

In pursuit of a real miracle

Unfortunately, one defeat did occur. Andrey Peglivanyan failed to cope with the first seeded Orazbek Assykulov from Kazakhstan. The Russian was very upset after the fight and had great difficulty hiding his feelings.

– It’s my own fault. The fight will need to be reconsidered. The guys are supportive, we are one team. My guys (fans) are here too. I want to thank everyone for rooting for me and continuing to root for the national team. I would like to apologize to everyone who expected more, to apologize to the coach. We will work, we will become stronger,” Match TV quotes Peglivanyan.

Nevertheless, Andrei was left with a bronze medal, and given that all the rest of us made it to the finals, this meant that the entire Russian team was guaranteed to leave Dubai with World Championship medals. An incredible success and another country record at this tournament, which may not be the last. Theoretically, 12 Russians have a chance at gold medals, but, of course, it’s not worth predicting anything in advance for a number of reasons. By the way, the President of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev, also stated this.

— The Russian team is really very strong. I want to congratulate everyone, but they don’t congratulate you in advance. Everyone is ready for decisive battles. There are such fights here that a two-time world champion loses to an international master of sports. This suggests that boxing is becoming more and more competitive,” Kremlev said on the air of the “Everyone for the Match!” program. on Match TV.

We can only look forward to the finals and victories of Russian boxers in order to once again experience pride and feel the goosebumps from the performance of the national anthem. After all, we all miss this so much in world sports.

Watch the live broadcast of the final matches of the World Cup on Saturday from 15:55 on the Match TV channel, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.