Samsun issued the 36 European Pass to Rio 2016

First of all I would like to express a sincere thanks to Mr. Eyup Gozgec, President of TBF, the LOC, the Local and National Government Institutions for their great effort made in order to ensure the functionality and the correct development of the European Olympic Qualification Tournament 2016.

AIBA Supervisor Mr. Angel Villarreal, Deputy Supervisors Mr.Pat Fiacco, Mr. Abdallah Bessalem, Ms. Nieva Embuldeniya and all ITOs, the AIBA staff – Ms. Kristin Brynildsen Mr. David Llaurado, Mr. William Louis-Marie, Ms. Ksenia Em and Mr. Alexandr Egorov – have developed a perfect and productive work to reach a successful performance that put this competition among the best at Continental level.

Our Pre-Olympic Tournament has registered 39 Countries and 263 boxers – 207 male and 56 female.

In Trabzon, in 2012 European Olympic Qualification Tournament, there were 26 participating Countries and 194 men boxers.

I would like to highlight the great performance of Great Britain Team for its fantastic results – 9 qualified! – and the excellent results of Azerbaijan, Armenia, France, Turkey, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Sweden, Hungary, Russia that reached the podium.

I would also like to mention the important presence of good boxers from three National Federations: PORTUGAL, BELGIUM, KOSOVO which have restarted, in a relevant way, their Olympic boxing activity.

Moreover, I am pleased to put in evidence a historical performance of the Dutch Boxing Federation and its outstanding President, Mr. Boris Van der Vorst: Peter Mullenberg has earned the Olympic Qualification after 24 years!!

32 Referees and Judges, coming from all 5 Continents, took turns on 2 rings until the Quarter Finals – only one ring for the Semifinals and Finals – ensuring fairness and neutrality of the technical results.

In Samsun, for the first time, in the Olympic Qualification Tournament we had both men and great women participation that showed a great vitality of women boxing in our Continent.

The European Olympic Qualification Tournament has again demonstrated the strength of boxing in our Continent, confirming and revealing some incredible new talents between the Rio 2016 medal contenders and I wish all our boxers the best of luck for August in Rio.

Franco Falcinelli
EUBC’s President