Bulgaria’s teenager Boyan Asenov impressed in the Golden Gong Tournament

The 48th edition of the Golden Gong Tournament was held in the capital city of F.Y.R. of Macedonia in Skopje over the weekend. Six nations shared the gold medals and Bulgaria’s Golden Belt Tournament winner 19-year-old Boyan Asenov showed his virtuoso style of boxing in Skopje winning his weight class easily.

The first edition of the Golden Gong Tournament was taking place in Skopje in 1969 and the competition is among Europe’s most traditional events. The crowd of the Boris Trajkovski Sports Centre saw two competition days in the 48th edition which event was parallel with the EUBC European Union Boxing Championships.

Thirteen champions have been crowned in the Golden Gong Tournament, the local organizers divided the participants into two groups in five weight classes. Bulgaria, F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Kosovo, Poland, Romania and Serbia won the titles of the Golden Gong Tournament in Skopje.

F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s first gold medal in the Golden Gong Tournament was achieved by Dzan Demirov who defeated Serbia’s Sasa Suljic in the final of the flyweight (52kg) by unanimous decision. F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s second title was captured by Jasin Ljama who attended in a few international competitions and his experiences were enough to use the bets tactic against Serbia’s Nemanja Gavrilovic in the final of the lightweight (60kg).

Bulgaria’s strong 19-year-old talent Boyan Asenov won the gold medal in the Golden Belt Tournament one and half month ago where he defeated England’s defending EUBC European Champion Peter McGrail in the final. The Bulgarian teenager used his world class footwork and dominated his bantamweight (56kg) final over Kosovo’s Leotrim Rexhepi which was finished by Asenov’s RSC victory.

In the second group of the bantamweight (56kg) Serbia’s young talent Veljko Gligoric defeated Albania’s Eldjon Belegu and won the gold medal in Skopje. Serbia’s next young talent 20-year-old Damjan Grmusa, who achieved strong results in the youth level, was too smart for F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s Denis Muaremovski in their final and won his next international tournament title.

Kosovo’s Patriot Behrami is an experienced boxer in the international stage who attended in the EUBC European Confederation U22 Boxing Championships this March. The Kosovan welterweight (69kg) boxer had to do his very best to beat F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s Lulzim Ismaili in the final by split decision. In the second group of the welterweight (69kg) Serbia’s Petar Stosic had to meet in the final with F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s experienced Goce Janevski and he was also slightly better than his local opponent.

Another young hope and U22 level boxer Dumitru Vicol, who started his boxing career in Moldova but he is representing Romania since 2017, closed his yearly campaign with a gold medal in Skopje where he was too strong for F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s Oktaj Feratov in the final of the middleweight (75kg).

Poland sent boxers to the Golden Gong Tournament at the very first time since 2010 and their young hope Piotr Szczukowski impressed in the final of the light heavyweight (81kg) against F.Y.R. of Macedonia’s Arsen Etemi. The last gold medal of the Golden Gong Tournament was taken by Bulgaria’s Ivan Mechkov at the heavyweight (91kg).