Saken Polatov: "We have the possibility to host top international events in Uzbekistan"

Saken Polatov replied to the questions of the Asian Boxing Confederation in the office of the Uzbekistan Boxing Federation.

“We prepared a lot to the Boxing Night to show our strength and hard work to the Asian continent. It was not an easy preparation for us during the pandemic and until the last moments we hoped that we can make it happen. You all saw our hard work to manage this event with the number of more than 10,000 spectators in the venue and many others could follow it in the TV and online broadcasts.

Mr. Malik Babaev, Mr. Shohid Tillaboev, Ms. Tamila Sarikhanova and many of my colleagues all worked hard for the success of the Boxing Night and all of the meetings which we have concluded in Tashkent.

Following the Tashkent Boxing Night, we had the first ever ASBC Fund & Development Commission Meeting where we discussed about the basics of our future work. These were the foundations of this new project and our main goal is that the National Federations and boxers should be satisfied with our work.

We can do a lot of things for Asia’s boxing life in the future, we have to know their needs, how to support them, and set up the procedures which is clean for everyone. Some of the National Federations already filled the registration forms for support and we can manage several of their problems and issues ourselves. We can give them equipments and funding to compete in the championships but the best would be also to arrange joint training camps and educational programs with them for their coaches and referees.

We start our work in Asia, and move ahead step by step to the world. We have got the instruction from our state President Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoyev to host top international sport events in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan will be hosting the 2022 Judo World Championships and next year we can do the same in boxing in 2023.

The first ever ASBC Asian U22 Boxing Championships will be held in Uzbekistan in October and we will try to fix the exact date as soon as possible but not so easy to plan for longer terms in advance in the current pandemic situation. We would like to be strong exemplars for all National Federations how to host big events.

Our Sidney Jackson Memorial Tournament was held last time in 2014 and after eight years of break we can host this international elite event next year. We are planning to invite big nations as Cuba, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, England, South Korea and many others.

We received the right to host the AIBA World Boxing Championships in 2023 where the venue will be the same Humo Arena as in the Tashkent Boxing Night. We can host also more international events in the future, we are open for it.

Uzbekistan will be the host of the Asian Youth Games in 2025 and we had the plan to win the bidding for the 2030 Asian Games but it was not successful. All of our boxers are in my heart and I believe we can do strong results in the future,” said Mr. Saken Polatov in his office at the Uzbekistan Boxing Federation.