Mr. Andrew Caulfield – It was a huge honour for me that I could officiate the Uzbekistan Elite National Championships

Mr. Andrew Caulfield of Scotland and Mr. Igor Biletskyi of Ukraine worked as neutral Evaluators in the men’s part of the competition. The management of the Uzbekistan Boxing Federation invited eight neutral AIBA 3-stars Referees & Judges to officiate the event and give fair play for all of the elite participants.  

Boxers who were born between 1981 and 2003 were eligible to attend in the Uzbekistan Men’s Elite National Championships in 2021. Many of their young hopes met each other to get the place in the national team for the upcoming ASBC Asian U22 Boxing Championships which is scheduled to be hosted in Tashkent on January 20-30, 2022.

“The National Championship in Tashkent was a great success, Uzbekistan has for huge depth of talents in all of the weight categories. It was great that IBA’s new weight categories have been used in the national event giving opportunities to more boxers to shine. This is a huge step showcasing many new talents using 13 weight categories.

The National Championships were full of World, Asian, Olympic, and Youth Olympic participants therefore it was important to use neutral referees in all of the bouts to secure the best results of this event. The women’s part of the national event was also full with talents and it was a pleasure to meet with their head coach, former two-time Asian Games winner Mr. Elshod Rasulov who was a great boxer in the past and I refereed him at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Before the start of the Uzbekistan National Championships, I conducted a Referee & Judge Seminar to over 50 national R&Js and new students from universities. Uzbekistan Boxing Federation has the strong vision to build up the system of the R&Js from all of the regions of the country and laid solid foundations for the future to arrange platforms for boxers, coaches and officials.

I was impressed about the work of the regional coaches, I had a full respect of their great attitude to boxing. Uzbekistan Boxing Federation has got a fantastic leader, Mr. Saken Polatov and the team leads by their manager, Mr. Shohid Tillaboev. It was a huge honour for me that Uzbekistan Boxing Federation invited me and I could lead all of their development programs and seminars.

The President of the Asian Boxing Confederation Mr. Anas Alotaiba appointed me and Uzbekistan Boxing Federation supported my role during their impressive National Championships.

Regarding my personal image about the National Championships, I really liked AIBA Youth World Champion and ASBC Asian Youth Champion Jakhongir Zokirov at the super heavyweight (+92kg). He was named as best male boxer and I believe he could be their new Bakhodir Jalolov in the near future. I also liked their Olympian female boxer, Tursunoy Rakhimova during the event but I saw dozens of big talents.

This stadium was crowded like a World Championships, and I met so many wonderful people in Uzbekistan, we shared our memories, experiences. Bakhodir Jalolov also came to see me personally, he is a true gentleman in our sport. Great boxing people in Uzbekistan and I am sure about the bright future of Asian boxing,” added Scotland’s official Mr. Andrew Caulfield about his experiences during the Uzbekistan National Championships.