The AIBA "Road to Milan" training camp in Assisi, Italy, has provided for a few surprise victories at the AIBA World Championships in Milan and three of the 94 boxers who participated have made it as far as today's quarter-finals at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan.
As part of the program, AIBA selected young talented boxers and coaches from 66 countries with financial difficulties, in order to develop boxing in those countries. This program not only provided crucial training experience but also supported the boxers financially for the entire period of the AIBA 2009 World Boxing Championships Milan.
Guatemala's Eddie Valenzuela had to bow out of the competition in the final 16 after an exhausting duel with Russia's Aloyan Misha in the 51kg category. The 26-year-old only managed to land one scoring punch against the 2008 AIBA World Cup gold medallist to leave Milan after a 7-1 defeat.
Benin's Shafiq Chitou had delighted the crowds in his earlier bouts in the 57kg category and continued to do so in his final-16 bout against Kerem Gurgen of Turkey. The young star in the making excelled at his first ever international tournament, defending well to lose with a close 4-2 defeat.
"I arrived here with nothing: no trainer, no money, no medicine - not even vitamins," he said. "But if you don't have the courage then you can't box. Even if I don't have money, I want to box. The next step is to work because this is the first time I've participated in a major international tournament and the next time I want to do even better."
In the 60kg category, Serdar Khudayberdiyev of Turkmenistan had an easy ride to the quarter-finals, where he will face Puerto Rico's José Pedraza González, the bronze medallist at the 2007 Pan-American Games.
Egidijus Kavaliauskas from Lithuania sealed his quarter final place with a thrilling 10-6 victory over Zdenek Chladek of the Czech Republic in the 64kg category and will face Frankie Gomez of the USA in his next bout.
"I'm very happy. I'm going to call my father now and let him know I made the quarter-finals," the 21-year-old said. "The training camp was very good. There were a lot of boxers from different countries and different parts of the world. It was a good way of studying different styles of boxing."
Super-heavyweight Primslav Dimovsi from Macedonia beat Jake Agediu from Nassau and Clayton Laurent from the Virgin Islands on his route to the last eight but today faces an altogether tougher bout against Olympic silver medalist Zhang Zhilei of China.