In 2019, for the second time in history, exactly 30 years later, Russia hosted the World Boxing Championship. The national team faced the tournament as one of the favorites and in the end it justified its status: three of the eight gold medals went to our athletes.
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However, the competition in Yekaterinburg was not remembered for the success of the team. Two days before the close of the championship, Russian boxers got into a scandal by staging a drunken fight at a local hotel.
The Russian Guard had to separate the athletes.
The 20th World Boxing Championships began in Yekaterinburg on September 7. The competitions in all weight categories were held in parallel, so the athletes had the same schedule. On September 19, all the boxers who won the quarterfinal stage were allowed to take a short rest. For the Russian team, this break was especially important – in four out of eight categories our representatives reached the semifinals.
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However, not all team members were able to properly manage their free time. On the night of September 19-20, that is, the eve of the semifinals, some of the athletes and representatives of the national boxing federation met at the Hyatt Hotel bar, where they stayed during the tournament, and had a Big party.
The event with songs and drinks began… only at three in the morning. The athletes quickly lost control of themselves: according to Baza’s telegram channel, the drunken boxers “did not quite understand what was going on around them”.
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A fight soon broke out between representatives of different regional federations. Other visitors to the bar tried to separate the athletes, but failed to stop the skirmish. By that time, the screams of drunkards and the noise of boxers had already managed to anger the guests, who called the Russian Guard to the hotel.
However, the boxers, among whom Vladislav Nosovets and coach Shamil Pirnaev especially stood out, were not going to surrender to the security forces. The Rosguards were immediately distributed: one of the athletes began to threaten the employees of the department, saying that he served in the special forces and “fought all over the world.” In the end, fortunately, the Russian Guard still managed to bring especially dangerous boxers and take them to their own rooms, after which the party was reduced.
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It is not known whether the four boxers who competed in the World Cup semifinals the next day took part in the drink, but their results, one way or another, were quite satisfying. Three of the wrestlers made it to the final and eventually won gold medals (Bakshi, Gadzhimagomedov and Zamkova), and only one was defeated and won only bronze (Babanin).
