Home nation, Germany, will have seven boxers in today’s final day of action at the ‘World Boxing Cup: Cologne 2023’.
Other countries with strong interest in the final day include Cuba with five boxers, England with four and Wales with three. Australia and Denmark both have two boxers in today’s finals, while Mongolia, Switzerland, and France each have one.
Today’s finals follow an intriguing day of semi-finals yesterday in Cologne.
One of the biggest surprises of the day came in the women’s bantamweight (54kg) class where Australia’s Monique Suraci defeated France’s European U22 Champion Romane Moulai. She will face England’s Tokyo 2020 Olympian, Charley Davison, who overcame Germany’s Zeina Nassar in her semi-final.
Despite having a large contingent of boxers recently competing at the PanAmerican Games, the Cuban line-up in Cologne has impressed as the team won all five of its semi-finals.
At flyweight (51kg) Giovis Salfran outpointed Mongolia’s Aldarkhichig Battulga while Rolando Martinez did the same against another Mongolian, Bilguunsaikhan Kharkhuu at featherweight (57kg). World silver medallist Erislandy Alvarez defeated Germany’s Assan Hansen at light welterweight (63kg). The other two Cuban winners were light-heavyweight (80kg) Jorge Manuel Soto, who defeated Germany’s Delil Dadaev and Nelson Jesus Williams who got the better of Australia’s Ikeanna Enyi at heavyweight (92kg).
Two other strong performing nations this week have been Wales and England. In the women’s welterweight category (66kg), the Welsh Commonwealth Games champion, Rosie Eccles, eliminated Germany’s Leonie Mueller. Her fellow Welsh boxers, Garan Croft (71kg) and Taylor Bevan (80kg) both won their semi-finals.
For England, Charley Davison will be joined in today’s finals by Demie-Jade Resztan (50kg), Elise Glynne (57kg) and Patrick Brown who triumphed over Australia’s Eddie Coumi at heavyweight (92kg).
One English boxer not joining his teammates in the finals is 2022 European Champion, Harris Akbar, who lost his light-middleweight (71kg) semi-final to the home nation’s Magomed Schachidov. The German will be joined in today’s finals by teammates Maxi Klotzer (50kg), Salah Ibrahim (51kg), Murat Yildirim (57kg), David Gkevorikian (63.5kg) Stefanie Von Berge (66kg) and Nikita Putilov (92kg+).
The draw for the finals can be viewed at:
The action will be streamed live from 1700 CET on Tuesday 31 October 2023 and can be viewed at:
World Boxing will posting updates on its social channels:
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/officialworldboxing/
- X / Twitter – https://twitter.com/RealWorldBoxing
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/OfficialWorldBoxing
The ‘World Boxing Cup: Cologne 2023’ is being delivered by the German Boxing Association in collaboration with World Boxing.
The 15 nations that have taken part in the competition include 11 countries that are members of World Boxing: Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Mongolia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and Wales. Three countries that are not currently members of the new IF, Cuba, France and Switzerland, have been given approval to compete by the Executive Board of World Boxing. The final entrant is representing the IOC’s Refugee team.