Some pictures highlighting my victories and struggles during the World Amateur Chessboxing Championship that occured in Antalya 2022.
I won the -75kg category after 3 fights. We were 5 in the category, starring 2 Russians, one Kazakhstani, and one Turkish fighters.
The first fight (and my first official fight) was expected to be hard at boxing and did match my expectations, by far my most challenging boxing test for me, my opponent
@utkir_ergashev2702 gave me so much trouble and a black eye that I would carry for the rest of the matches. At the end I could end the boxing round, without being counted, and beat him at chess in the third round.
My second opponent was coming from Kazakhstan and I didn't know what to expect both in boxing or chess. He made a mistake on move three, loosing a pawn, so sticking to my strategy of playing fast against lower rated opponent, in order to only box 1 round during qualifications, I pushed the speed button and played quickly, even if it meant loosing some accuracy on the board. The boxing round was quite surprising as I found myself under some pressure from the start, taking a few wide and relatively strong shots, one put my nose to bleed quite strongly putting myself in risk to loose due to injury. During the rest of the fight, I managed to hold most of the blood by maintaining my right hand against my right nostril, and pushed the win before the end of the chess round.
The final was surprisingly my longest but smoothest match, as I was better in chess and felt good during boxing despite some tiredness from previous fight and injuries, not being able to fully breath through my nose. I even managed to knock down my opponent with an overhand right on the jaw, that I actually worked a lot at
@kutilgym_ 🙏
He thought well and put a lot of pressure on me at the boxing, but I kept my cool and applied my strategy, taking less damage than usual 😅, maturation ? I won by chess time on the 5th round making me a world champion of chessboxing.
#chessboxing #chess #boxing #echecs #fight #fights #worldchampion #worldchampionship #chessboxingfight
#chessboxingparis #wcbo #ring #knockdown #blackeye #bloodynose #motivation #fighttowin
