Twice world champion 26-year-old virtuoso Serik Sapiyev of Kazakhstan is preparing for the 2010 Asian Games, a multi-sport event held every four years that includes men's and women's boxing, will be held in Guangzhou, China, on the 12th to 27th November this year. The gold from this competition is still missing from Sapiyev's collection and he intends to win it.
Serik Sapiyev was born in Abay, Central Kazakhstan in the Karaganda Province, on the 16th of November 1983 and his 27th birthday will be celebrated during the Asian Games. He has been training and living in Karaganda since his childhood.
Serik had never represented Kazakhstan in an international tournament in the cadet or junior levels but when he was 20 he attended his first international event, the Albena Tournament in Bulgaria, where he claimed a gold medal.
In 2004, Serik's skills and conditioning developed spectacularly and soon after the Athens Olympic Games he won the World University Championships in Antalya, Turkey and the Kazakh National Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The fleet-footed southpaw counter-puncher Serik acquired the gold medal in the AIBA Men's World Championships in Mianyang, China in 2005 after a heroic battle against Dilshod Mahmudov of Uzbekistan in the lightweight final.
Serik's great victorious series ended in 2006 in his new 64kg weight class. At the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, he won only a bronze medal after losing to Olympic Champion Manus Boonjumnong of Thailand whom he knocked down during the contest, but Serik still lost the match, 22:18.
Standing at 179cm tall, Serik reached the 2007 AIBA World Championships finals by beating Masatsugu Kawachi of Japan before defeating Gennadiy Kovalev of Russia 20:5, defending his world champion title in Chicago.
In 2008, Serik lost in the quarterfinals at the Beijing Olympic Games to his old rival Boonjumnong. The final decision was 7:5 to the Thai boxer and the Kazakh athlete had to return home without a medal.
Speedy Serik went up a weight category again into welterweight class last year and won a bronze medal in the World Championships in Milan after losing in the tournament's greatest match to Andrey Zamkovoy of Russia, 16:10.
Serik Sapiyev is already a legend in Kazakhstan and he is one of the most qualified boxers in the world. The welterweight is special Kazakh territory. The hegemony started in 2004 when Bakhtiyar Artayev won the category in the Athens Olympics and Bakhyt Sarsekbayev followed suit in Beijing. Serik's coach hopes he will be the third Kazakh boxer to win the welterweight class.
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