Baqtiyar Artayev

Cyrillic ( Kazakh )
	Бақтияр Ғарифоллаұлы Артаев
Latin :	Baqtïyar Ğarïfollaulı Artayev
Transcr. :	Baqtiyar Garifollauli Artayev
Cyrillic ( Russian )
	Бахтияр Карипуллаевич Артаев
Transl. :	Bakhtiyar Karipullayevich Artaev
Transcr. :	Bakhtiyar Karipullaevich Artayev

Baqtijar Karipullajewitsch Artajew (born March 14, 1983 in Jambul, Kazakh SSR , Soviet Union , today Taras , Kazakhstan ) is a Kazakh boxer.

career

Artayev started boxing at the age of ten. In 1998 he became Kazakh youth champion. At the Junior World Championships in Budapest in 2000 , he was eliminated in the preliminary round against the Belarusian Pavel Sinjukowitsch. He played his first major international senior tournament in 2003 at the World Amateur Championship in Bangkok . With points wins over the Australian Daniel Geale and Kim Jing-joo from South Korea, he reached the quarter-finals, where he was defeated by the Uzbek Schersod Husanow 14:18.

In 2004 Artayev took part in the Olympic Games in Athens for Kazakhstan and surprisingly became Olympic welterweight champion (up to 69 kg). In the preliminary round he prevailed against Willy Tankeu from Cameroon and with 33:23 points against Aliasker Baschirow from Turkmenistan. In the quarterfinals he beat the Ukrainian Viktor Polyakow by breaking off in the third round. His semi-final opponent, the two-time Russian Olympic champion and defending champion Oleg Saitow , he was able to defeat with 20:18 points and thus qualify for the final. There he defeated the world champion of 2001 and 2003, Lorenzo Aragón from Cuba with 36:26 points. Artajew was also honored with the Val Barker Cup as the best boxer of the games for his performance .

At the 2005 World Cup in Mianyang , China , he finished third after beating Juan Carlos Prada from Venezuela (33:11), Spas Genow from Bulgaria (25:17), Miloud Ait Hammi from Morocco (48:28) and in the quarterfinals Kahaber Schwania from Georgia (32:18) he reached the semifinals, in which he was defeated by the Cuban Erislandi Lara with 22:31 points. He then moved to the next higher weight class, the middleweight.

He finished the 2006 Asian Games in Doha in second place, where he lost in the final against the Uzbek Elschod Rasulow with 22:32 points. In 2007 he played his third amateur world championships in Chicago . He beat Georgi Nakani from Georgia by breaking off in the second round, Cho Deok-jin from South Korea by breaking off in the fourth round, Suriya Prasathinpimai from Thailand (20: 7) and Said Rachidi from Morocco (19:11). In the semifinals, however, he was completely surprisingly defeated by Alfonso Blanco from Venezuela with 7:15 points and thus ended the tournament in third place.

The placement was also sufficient to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games . In Beijing he then prevailed again in the preliminary round against the Moroccan Said Rachidi (8: 2) and was then able to defeat the reigning two-time world champion and gold medal favorite Matwei Korobow from Russia just under 10: 7. In the quarter-finals, however, Artayev was eliminated against the British James DeGale with 3: 8 points.