(MAR 2) The host nation celebrated on finals day in Sofia with Bulgarian women taking three Golds and a Silver from the five women’s finals.

Overall it was a very successful day for fans of the strong Bulgarian contingent with their men also taking home Gold in two weights.

Most successful nation in the men’s tournament was Uzbekistan with five Golds and three Silvers from the 10 weights in Strandja.

Just a few of the highlights from the women’s bouts:

China’s Cancan REN was comprehensively defeated 3:0 by Stoyka Petrova in the 51kg flyweight final. You will recall that the Chinese boxer took silver at the London Olympics losing only to Nicola Adams in the final.

Christina Cruz of the United States did very well to reach the final at 54kg when she was went down 0:3 to World champion Stanimira Petrova having defeated China’s Piaopiao LIU in the semi-final.

The local hosts had high hopes that Svetlana Kamenova would win the 60kg lightweight title but despite some good wins earlier in the week she was ‘no match’ for Finland’s Mira Potkonen in the final.

The ‘Golden Girl’ at the recent Boras Box Cup tournament scored a shock TKO1 victory in Sofia and Kamenova had to make do with silver. The ‘Flying Finn’ had another fine win in the semi-final when she disposed of

French champion and European silver medallist, Estelle Mosselly from France 3:0

We have highlighted the rise of Sweden’s Agnes Alexiusson here on WBAN in recent tournaments and she did exceptionally well again in Strandja having defeated China’s Wenlu YANG in the semis.

In the final itself she shocked Azerbaijan’s Elena Vystropova 2:0 – in a convincing win.

Nouchka Fontijn from the Netherlands has won many 75kg titles in recent years but on this occasion went under 1:2 to China’s Qian Li in a hard fought encounter between the world’s no 3 (Fontijn) and no.2.

There remains a wealth of talent in that division including of course Canada’s Ariane Fortin, England’s Savannah Marshall and Russia’s, Iaroslava IAKUSHINA as well as Olympic champion Claressa Shields.

It was however a disappointment to European boxing lovers that as late as today (Sunday) the European Federation still had not included the results from the finals nor any report thereon whilst the AIBA itself was featuring ‘old news’ from a European Junior Tournament and

A preview of the Strandja tournament some seven days after the event had started. Followers of the ‘amateur’ sport worldwide are receiving a ‘raw deal’ though some national associations like USA,Canada, England,France and Ireland did provide updates re their boxers.

The staff at the EUBC and AIBA are ‘very helpful’ but one gets the impression that they are vastly overworked and understaffed and trying to cope with not only tournaments like Strandja but also WSB/APB and thus boxing fans receive little news from their governing bodies and thus the service provided

by such as WBAN is now their main source of information. Worse still the national associations of many countries provide little or no information even in their local language.

The AIBA is a “wealthy organisation” and if it hopes to ‘dominate’ the world of boxing with AIBA events must do more, much more to provide the type of LIVE service that boxers, their coaches, families and others expect in the modern communications era so PLEASE AIBA provide your fans and your Confederations with a comprehensive information service and help such as the EUBC and others financially for it must surely be clear to all that the current service pleases few.

Just how ‘out of touch’ they appear to be to fans can be gauged by the fact that the EUBC was updating photos and news from an EUBC congress in Assisi (which took place some time ago) at same time as they were getting further behind with results from events like Strandja. Is that what the boxing public REALLY wants especially as it was little more than a ‘photocall’ and did not give any details of what was agreed (if anything) in Assisi?

Wake up, AIBA or you will lose the support of more and more in the AIBA family and fail to progress your plans for the future of AIBA/WSB/APB and AOB boxing!

Women’s Finals:

51kg Stoyka Petrova BUL Ren Cancan CHN 3:0

54kg Stanimira Petrova BUL Christina Cruz USA 3:0

60kg Mira Potkonen FIN Svetlana Kamenova BUL TKO 1

64kg Agnes Alexiusson SWE Elena Vystropova AZE 2:0

75kg Li Qian CHN Nouchka Fontijn HOL 2:1