1st AIBA World Cup Moscow 2008 Official Tournament Page

The semifinalists at the AIBA World Cup Moscow 2008 have been found after the quarterfinals were completed on day two of this AIBA end-of-year competition in the Megasport Sport Palace in Moscow, Russia on Thursday. Forty-four boxers will now vie for prize money of at least $5,000 when they compete in Saturday's semifinals.

The quarterfinals for the 51kg, 57kg, 64kg, 75kg and 91kg divisions were held and with prize money of $10,000 for 1st place, $5,000 for 2nd place and $2,500 for the bronze medallists there was plenty of intensity inside the ring.

Pic: India's Jitender Kumar (red) beat Jo Gage of Wales 18:6 in the 51kg quarterfinals

Itlay's Vincenzo Picardi guaranteed himself a paycheck by making an excellent start to the tournament with a repeat of his 51kg Olympic Games quarterfinal victory over Tunisia's Walid Cherif with a 13:6 win in the opening bout of the day.

Picardi will now face Russian 2007 Junior European champion Misha Aloyan in the semifinals after the 20-year-old beat Tajikistan's Anvar Yunusov 13:1.

On the other side of the 51kg draw India's Jitender Kumar was too good for Jo Gage of Wales winning 18:6 while Hernandez Laffita of Cuba ground out a solid 10:6 win over Moldova's Amexandr Riscan.

"I was confident ahead of this bout," Kumar said. "I felt good and put into practice all my training proving to be too quick and too strong whilst keeping my technique. I owe a lot to my brother (54kg Akhil Kumar) who gave me sound advice ahead of the bout - stay calm, concentrate and always remember you are better than him."

Pic: Cuba's Idel Torriente (red) beat China's Li Yang 11:2 in the 57kg quarterfinals

It obviously worked for Akhil as well who beat Germany's Marcel Schneider on the opening day.

Meanwhile, disappointingly there were two walkovers in the 51kg division including Olympic champion Vasyl Lomachenko of the Ukraine who was injured. Mexico's Arturo Santos Reyes failed to make weight.

The 64kg division saw Military world champion and Olympic Games bronze medallist Alexis Vastine of France carry on his good form with a 13:4 win over AIBA World Championships Chicago 2007 bronze medallist Japan's Masatsugu Kawachi while Olympic Games bronze medallist Sotolongo Iglesias was in irresistible form, storming to a 5:0 and 8:2 lead after two rounds before finishing off a comprehensive 18:6 win over 2005 World Championship silver medallist Romal Amanov of Azerbaijan.

One of the pretournament 75kg favourites, Alfonso Blanco of Venezuela, was untouchable in his first bout of the tournament racing to a 8:0 after one round against Argenis Nunez of the Dominican Republic, before referee Michael Moroka of Botswana halted the bout 16 seconds into the second with Blanco, a AIBA World Championships Chicago 2007 silver medallist, ahead 10:0. It was a repeat of Blanco's 2008 Olympic Games preliminary round win (18:7) over Nunez and the AIBA President's Cup champion will now face two-times Russian champion Dmitry Chudinov in the semis. The bottom half of the 75kg draw sees a repeat of the Olympic Games second round clash in the semifinals between Uzbekistan's Elshod Rasulov and Andranik Hakobyan of Armenia after Rasulov beat Chinese national champ Wang Jianzheng 5:2 while Hakobyan thrashed Korea's Deokjin Cho 19:4. Rasulov, 22, will start favourite after beating 27-year-old Hakobyan by RSCI in the fourth round in Beijing.

Pic: Mongolia's MunkhErdene Uranchimeg lands a scoring punch on Madadi Magzibekov (TJK) on his way to a 18:3 quarterfinal win in the 64kg draw

The final weight category of the day saw 91kg Olympic bronze medallist Osmai Acosta Duarte in dominant form with a 15:4 win over young Russian Evgeniy Romanov, who admitted he was completely outclassed.

"My plan did not work. I was counting on a "heavy blow", one or several, which would have decided the bout in my favour, but it seems that I had forgotten that in 99% of cases such tactics do not work," Romanov, who won silver at the 2008 AIBA President's Cup, said. "Acosta simply did not allow me to approach him close enough for this to work. I should have changed the tactics, used lighter blows and broken the distance.

"On the other hand the Cuban was faster in the ring, he has better endurance and more experience, he is an Olympic Games medallist with 215 bouts under his belt and he has won nearly 200 of them. It's a pity that I failed, but it is a valuable lesson".

Acosta Duarte will take on another Russian in the semis after Roman Masalimov beat Ilias Pavlidis of Greece after their bout finished 12:12 before going to the judges.

Friday is a rest day for the AIBA World Cup Moscow 2008 before the semifinals take place at 16:00 on Saturday.