Artur Beterbiev of Russia on his way to victory over India's Dinesh
Kumar earlier in the tournament 

Artur Beterbiev of Russia is on a mission at the XV AIBA World Championships, and today's light-heavyweight semi-final against Cuba's Jose Larduet Gomez is one more hurdle that the Chechen boxer has to overcome. Beterbiev is looking to go one better than two years ago in Chicago, when he took home a World Championship silver medal.

The 24-year-old, resident in Moscow but proud of his Chechen roots, spent much of his early boxing career emerging from the giant shadow cast by his compatriot, the two-time world champion Evgeny Makarenko. After losing to Makarenko in the Russian national championships of 2006, Beterbiev took advantage of his rival's absence through injury to win the European title later that year.

That proved to be the turning point for Beterbiev, who beat Makarenko convincingly in the following year's national championships before going on to take silver in Chicago, where he lost to Uzbekistan's Abbos Atoev. He got his revenge over Atoev at the following year's AIBA World Cup final, and Atoev is also in action today but has now dropped down to middleweight.

Beterbiev's opponent today, Larduet Gomez, is another familiar one as the two men met during a tournament in Hungary at the start of this year. On that occasion the man from Chechnya prevailed on points, but his camp knows Beterbiev has his work cut out if he wants to reach tomorrow's 81kg final.

"The Cuban is very aggressive and he likes to dominate the ring, just like Artur," said Berbetiev's coach and brother, Abakar Beterbiev. "For a bout like this we have spent a lot of time in training. It will be a very interesting fight because both men have an aggressive style of boxing and they both want to win."

If Beterbiev does reach tomorrow's final he could face Uzbekistan's Elshod Rasulov, whom he beat in the final of a tournament in Istanbul in April. And if he completes his mission by winning the gold medal, no doubt Beterbiev will celebrate sooner rather than later by doing what he loves best: playing on his sea scooter and watching a film starring his favourite actor, the Italian Adriano Celentano.