The Technical Meeting and the Official Draw took place in the 26th Acropolis Cup in Athens, Greece where the President of the European Boxing Confederation, Mr. Ioannis Filippatos also attended. Altogether 68 boxers are attending in the Acropolis Cup where 13 champions will celebrate their titles on Sunday.
The Acropolis Cup returned to the boxing agenda after 18 years of break as the last edition took place as Olympic Test Event in May 2004. The return of the Acropolis Cup is the strong commitment of the Hellenic Boxing Federation and their energetic President, Mr. Charis Mariolis. The Technical Delegate of the Acropolis Cup is Mr. Maxim Cherticovtsev of Moldova.
The 14 participating nations at the Acropolis Cup are the following: Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Poland, Seychelles, Slovenia, Trinidad & Tobago, and Ukraine. Four of the five Confederations sent boxers to the 26th Acropolis Cup, Europe, Asia, America and Africa.
Seychelles and Trinidad & Tobago are using the event as the final active preparation before the start of the Commonwealth Games. The men’s light welterweight (63.5kg) is the most crowded category at the Acropolis Cup with the participation of 11 boxers.
The venue of the Acropolis Cup is the Panathenaic Stadium in the centre of Athens which is a historic stadium built in 330/329 BC. This is the only stadium in the entire world which is made from marble.
The elite international competition starts with 10 bouts in the 26th Acropolis Cup today with preliminaries and quarter-finals from 17:00 local time.
One of the most anticipated contests in the opening day of the event will be held between Trinidad & Tobago’s AIBA World Boxing Championships bronze medallist Nigel Paul and North Macedonia’s 19-year-old super talented Ardijan Azemi at the super heavyweight (+92kg). Armenia’s Narek Hovhannisyan and Slovenia’s Nik Nikolov Veber both are experienced boxers in the international stage but now will meet each other in the first preliminary round of the light welterweight (63.5kg) on Day1.
