Klotzer and Brown impress on third day of action at World Boxing Cup: GB Open – Sheffield 2024

Credit: Andy Chubb

DAY three of the ‘World Boxing Cup: GB Open – Sheffield 2024’ saw semi-finals in 10 weight classes and the continuation of the round-robin stages in the men’s flyweight and heavyweight categories and the women’s bantamweight division.

On a day that saw the teams from England and Germany continue to enjoy success, the opening session was bookended by two top quality performances by boxers from each nation.

In the first bout of the day, Germany’s Maxi Klotzer continued the great form that saw her win gold in the inaugural World Boxing Cup in Cologne in October 2023, with a controlled performance to unanimously defeat the Finnish southpaw and long-time rival, Pihla Kaivo-Oja. Klotzer will meet Savannah Stubley in tomorrow’s final after she defeated Demie-Jade Resztan in an all-English semi-final.   

The final bout of the session saw England’s Patrick Brown produce an explosive ‘Bout of the day’ performance to defeat Nigeria’s Paris-bound, Adam Olare, at heavyweight.

Boxing in front of his home crowd, the heavy-hitting Brown inflicted a knock down in round one, followed by standing counts in two and three, before the referee finally stopped the contest.

Speaking in the mixed zone after their respective bouts, Klotzer and Brown, were both in a buoyant mood.

Klotzer said: “I think I boxed very technical and very organised in my head. This was the seventh time I have fought her in the last two years, so we know each other completely and I think I won five times.

“I am in good form at the moment and this is good preparation for the (Olympic) qualifiers later in the year. I think the final will be a very good fight and I am looking forward to it.”

Brown said: “I needed to get the cobwebs off for the first two rounds so even though it looked the part, I wasn’t as sharp. In the last round I stuck to my boxing and the stoppage came. It’s a good first fight.

“I’ve been itching to get in there and had lots of nerves and adrenaline, so I am happy to get the first fight out of the way and I look forward to tomorrow. I feel great and I can’t wait. I have got even more support coming tomorrow, so the more the merrier.”

In between the victories for Klotzer and Brown, the first session featured action in four of the women’s weight classes and saw wins at lightweight (60kg) for England’s Lucy Kings Wheatley and Shona Whitwell who will meet in an all-England final.

At bantamweight (54kg), Denmark’s Melissa Mortensen and Lauren Mackie from England secured routine victories and will face-off tomorrow for the gold medal.

Some of the best female action came, once again, in the middleweight division (75kg) where Panama’s two-time Olympian, Atheyna Bylon and Cindy Ngamba from the IOC’s Refugee Team enjoyed unanimous victories over home nation boxers to set-up a mouthwatering final.

In the men’s categories, Jack Dryden and Owain Harris, who are both part of the GB Boxing Olympic squad, won their featherweight semi-finals and will battle it out for gold tomorrow in an England versus Wales final.

The evening session saw English boxers continue to do well with victories for Elise Glynn at featherweight (57kg), Joe Tyers and Patris Mughalzai at light-welterweight (63.5kg), Lewis Richardson at light-middleweight (71kg) and Ramtin Musah at light-heavyweight (80kg). 

For the Germans it ended on a mixed note in the super-heavyweight division. A victory for Nikita Putilov put him in tomorrow’s final but his teammate and 2022 European champion, Nelvie Tiafack, failed to make it an all-German affair when he lost by a split decision to Omar Shiha of Norway.

Other boxers from the later session that will box in the last day of competition tomorrow include Germany’s Salah Ibrahim and Denmark’s 2023 European Games gold medallist, Nikolai Terteryan who will contest the light-middleweight final.

All of today’s results and images from the bouts can be viewed at  https://www.englandboxing.org/world-boxing-cup-gb-open/.

The final day of action on Saturday 20 January 2024 will feature two sessions of boxing, starting at 10:00 and 13:30 and is being streamed live on World Boxing’s YouTube page and the BBC.

World Boxing YouTube

BBC:

The ‘World Boxing Cup: GB Open – Sheffield 2024’ is being delivered by England Boxing in association with World Boxing and GB Boxing and is supported by the National Lottery, UK Sport and Sheffield City Council.

World Boxing will be posting updates throughout the competition on its social media channels: