The AIBA Youth World Championships Guadalajara 2008 will get underway on Saturday with 359 boxers (aged 17 and 18) from 68 countries registered to compete in the inaugural AIBA Youth World Championships, running from October 25-November 1 in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The AIBA Youth World Championships replaces the Junior World Championships which was organized for the first time in 1979 and was last held (the 14th edition) in Agadir, Morocco in 2006.

Cuba won the unofficial team ranking in the last Junior (Youth) World Championships with five gold medals, followed by Russia with two golds and host nation Morocco, Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary with one gold each. Ukraine's gold medal was achieved by Vasyl Lomachenko who won the featherweight category in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was awarded the Val Barker trophy as the Best Boxer of the tournament.

While this inaugural edition of the Youth World Championships won't act as a qualifiyng event for the Youth Olympic games in 2010, don't be surprised to see some of the competing boxers in three to four years time attempting to qualify for London 2012.

Cuba, Russia, United States, the Ukraine, and Turkey will be competing in all 11 weight categories, while host country Mexico and Kazakhstan have entered 10 boxers each. Mexico won't take part in the lightest weight category, light-fly, because of Saul Juarez's injury.

Plenty of the world's best boxing countries will be competing with Armenia (7), Azerbaijan (9), Belarus (9), Dominican Republic (6), France (6), Germany (8), Ireland (8), Italy (3), Korean Republic (9), Puerto Rico (8), Romania (8), Hungary (9), Mongolia (4), Uzbekistan (6), and Venezuela (7) all in the mix.
 
Three boxers to watch out for are those who competed in the Beijing Olympics - Furkan Memis Ulas (54kg) from Turkey, Oscar Valdez Fierro (57kg) from Mexico, and Luis Porozo (57kg) from Ecuador.
 
Three big nations will be missing however with Bulgaria, one of the top five boxing countries in the world in the early 90s, not participating due to financial problems while Greece won't be participating as Mr. George Mantaios from the Greek National Association explained: "We decided not to send any participants to Guadalajara as we recently employed a new coach, so we want him to evaluate the team first." And rising boxing nation Tajikistan won't be taking part as its National Championships will be at the same time.

Follow the AIBA Youth World Championships Guadalajara 2008 LIVE with live scoring, news results and photographs here on www.aiba.org