The 74th Strandja International Boxing tournament has come to the final stage. After five days of preliminaries and quarterfinals, all the medallists in the twenty-five elite men’s and women’s weight categories have been declared. This year’s edition of the tournament gathered 398 boxers from 38 countries across the 5 continents. The EUBC Technical Delegate in Sofia is Mr. Dragoljub Radovic from Montenegro.

The tournament started with 256 men and 142 women. A total of 26 national teams succeeded to reach the semi-final phase. The most successful countries in women’s ranking are India and Poland with the 5 medallists, Australia and China with 4, and Bulgaria, USA and France with 3. All the women’s semi-final bouts are scheduled for the first session today, which will start at 1 pm.

Uzbekistan totally dominated the men’s division. The Asian country is the team with the highest number of participants, and they have as many as 16 boxers in the semi-finals. All of them will fight tomorrow in the second session, starting at 5 pm. Besides Uzbekistan, the Bulgarian men took 6 medals, Armenia 4, while India and USA each secured 3 medals. Altogether 19 countries will have at least one boxer in the men’s semi-finals.

This year’s Strandja tournament is not only the biggest in its own history, but probably one with the highest number of top-notch boxers. Many medallists from different major competitions are vying for medals in Sofia these days. The tournament is a great check for the Men’s and Women’s World Championships, as well as Olympic qualifying events that are planned for later this year.

The finals will be held on Sunday 26 February with the first session starting at 1 pm and the second at 5 pm. All the bouts can be viewed on the official YouTube channel of the Bulgarian Boxing Federation.