Athlete of February – Azat Usenaliev, Kyrgyzstan

Athlete of February – Azat Usenaliev

Kyrgyzstan’s first and lone ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Champion Azat Usenaliev proved top performance in the Duisenkul Shopokov Memorial Tournament in Bishkek where he defeated Algeria’s AIBA World Boxing Championships silver medallist Mohamed Flissi in the gold medal bout. Following his great efforts ASBC President Mr. Serik Konakbayev and the ASBC management named him as Athlete of February.
Azat Usenaliev was born in the city of Tokmak on 11 September in 1991 and began boxing very early at the age of 10. The talented youngster won the Kyrgyz Cadet National Boxing Championships in 2007 while his first international event outside of Kyrgyzstan was the AIBA Cadet World Boxing Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan in September 2007.
Usenaliev robbed into the world of boxing at the 2009 ASBC Asian Continental Championships in Zhuhai, China where he defeated Uzbekistan’s more experienced athlete, Rafikjon Sultanov. Following that event he received the right to compete in the 2009 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Milan, at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou and at the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Baku but he was still too young to beat the best boxers of the world in those main competitions.
In the AIBA Asian Olympic Qualifiers he met with Kazakhstan’s strong favourite Ilyas Suleimenov and their preliminary contest was one of the best in the whole competition in Astana. The host nation’s boxer was too tired in the final frame but he could keep three points advantage against Usenaliev who had to pass up a ticket to the London 2012 Olympics but this loss was a good motivation for him in the current Rio 2016 Olympic era.
Kyrgyzstan’s Azat Usenaliev was medal contender before the 2013 ASBC Asian Continental Championships and his top rivals such as Kazakhstan’s AIBA Asian Olympic Qualifiers winner Ilyas Suleimenov and Philippines’ Asian Games gold medallist Rey Saludar both were eliminated in the previous stage of the championships. The 22-year-old Kyrgyz flyweight (52 kg) boxer prepared well enough from the knowledge of Uzbekistan’s tough Shakhobiddin Zoirov and dominated the second part of their battle which resulted the first ever gold medal for Kyrgyzstan in the history of the Asian Championships since 1993 when the Central Asian country joined to the continent’s boxing life.
The Kyrgyz No.1 competed in the fourth season of the World Series of Boxing (WSB) as member of the Ukraine Otamans franchise and won three out of his four contests and lost to only Welshmen two-time European Champion star Andrew Selby. His record meant that he was No.4 in the individual ranking of the Flyweight class (52 kg).
Following his WSB duties Azat Usenaliev travelled to the Sidney Jackson Memorial Tournament to Tashkent as part of the Kyrgyz national team in mid May and advanced to the final after beating Uzbekistan’s Shakhobiddin Zoirov in the semi-final once again. The most anticipated fight of the whole Sidney Jackson Memorial Tournament was realized between Usenaliev and Uzbekistan’s AIBA World Boxing Championships silver medallist Jasurbek Latipov who also advanced to the final of the Flyweight class (52 kg) but due his injury he did not step into the ring against the Kyrgyz hope.
Usenaliev travelled to the Incheon 2014 Asian Games to Korea as a gold medal contender but following his excellent start he was injured against Pakistan’s Commonwealth Games silver medallist Muhammad Waseem after 28 seconds in the quarter-final stage of the event. This shocking results meant Usenaliev raised the rhythm of his training sessions to be the best in 2015. In his opening battle of the fifth season of the World Series of Boxing the Kyrgyz boxer stopped Welshmen Andrew Selby before the final bell on their re-match which was over the expectations.
Usenaliev’s main event was the ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in 2015 in Thailand where he claimed bronze medal as lone Kyrgyz boxer and could not defend his title. From the Bangkok event he qualified for the Doha 2015 AIBA World Boxing Championships but lost his opening bout to Germany’s Hamza Touba who used up his longer hands to keep the distance.
Kyrgyzstan’s No.1 prepared to 2016 more actively and tried to do his very best at the Duisenkul Shopokov Tournament to show his technique to the local crowd. Usenaliev defeated strong rivals with superb performance but he delivered his bets just in the finals against such as big name Algeria’s AIBA World Boxing Championships silver and bronze medallist Mohamed Flissi in Bishkek. Usenaliev won all of the rounds and can prepares to his next AIBA Asian & Oceanian Olympic Qualifying Event with positive attitude.