Bektemir Melikuziev was born in 1996 and will be turning to 20 only next year but his performance delivered for him this important title. Following his gold medal in the 2014 AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships and in the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games he joined to the elite age group.

The 19-year-old Uzbek boxer won the gold medal at the Strandja Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria which was his first main international elite tournament and a strong competition. Melikuziev eliminated Kazakhstan’s AIBA World Champion Zhanibek Alimkhanuly in the quarter-final of the ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Bangkok and achieved finally the top of the podium in Thailand.

The Uzbek teenager won four fights at the Doha 2015 AIBA World Boxing Championships and secured a valuable silver medal in the most important event of the year. Melikuziev has already qualified to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where he is among the gold medal favourites of the Middleweight class (75 kg).

At the same time, the Best Asian Coach of the year went to Rustam Saidov of Uzbekistan. Saidov was gold medallist at the 1999 Asian Boxing Championships in Tashkent and he was bronze medallist at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games as a boxer of the Super Heavyweight class (+91 kg).

The 37-year-old former boxer is now an experienced coach in Uzbekistan who showed his skills are world class in this area as well. Uzbekistan delivered sensational year in 2015, their national team won gold medals in the most important events during the preparation to the major goals.

Rustam Saidov’s team continued the excellent winning series at the ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Bangkok achieving nine medals including two gold. The Uzbek team took record number of six medals at the Doha 2015 AIBA World Boxing Championships which was the success also of their coaching squad.