Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine young men dominate at Dracula Open
02 March 2023The second edition of the Dracula Open International Tournament in Arad, Romania had an impressive number of boxers, 365, from 25 countries: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Romania.
The tournament had four categories with the junior boys and girls, and youth men and women. The junior boys finals’ were held first and Azerbaijan team dominated this category with six gold medals: Ali Baghishov (46kg), Sukhan Dabayev(48kg), Elbrus Kariuli (54kg), Orujali Tavadzade (57kg), Mirhasan Ibrahim (60kg) and Tarlan Ahmadov (63kg). Another gold in the youth men’s category gave the Azerbaijan young men the award for Best Male Team in the tournament.
Romania took 5 gold medals in the junior boys division, andthe best boxer from the host country was Petrea Edwin (50 kg) who had an impressive performance in the match against Ovsepian Tihran (Armenia). Greek Gotiadis Gnanooil (66kg) and Hungarian Varadi Sandor (75 kg) also had very good performances in the finals. Gotiadis was declared Best Junior Male Boxer of Dracula Open and received 500 euros.
The youth men finals was dominated by Uzbekistan boxers. The Uzbeks arrived to the Dracula Open with five youth boxers and they all reached the finals of the competition. The Uzbek young men took 4 gold medals and 1 silver plus the Best Youth Male Boxer award. World Champion at 75 kg,Fazlidinn Erkimboev won gold with a 5-0 decision against Kasianov Artyz (Ukraine).
The Ukraine team entered the youth finals with 10 boxers and took 3 golds with Zymenko Maxim (48 kg), Zavadskyi Ivan (57 kg) and Nikita Zasenok (80 kg). Romanian boxer Florin Ionita, silver medalist at European Youth 2022 and bronze medalist at IBA World Youth 2022 dominated the 92 kg division. In the final, Ionita won (5-0) against Armenian Hovsepyan Ishkman. The second gold medalist from Romania was Arun Tudoroiu (63,5 kg) who won (5-0) against ukrainianMark Lomakin. One of best bouts of the tournament in the men’s finals was the 54kg final between Aslanle Omar (AZE) and Rasul Guliyev (UKR). The Azerbaijan boxer won the very close bout 3-2.
The finals were highly competitive with all boxers showing good skills and techniques. The only RSC took place in last bout where Italian Vincenzo Guida stopped Ukrainian Rybalko Vsevolod in the second round.
