Rassul Boqiyev

Rassul Boqijew ( Tajik Расул Боқиев; born September 29, 1982 ) is a Tajik judoka .

Career

Rassul Boqijew competes in the lightweight (up to 73 kg) and won a bronze medal on his international debut, the 2005 Asian Judo Championships in Tashkent . He was able to repeat this success a year later at the Asian Games in Doha . Boqijew was also successful at several World Cup events: in Hamburg he achieved silver (2006) and bronze (2008) at the Otto Super Cup, and even gold in Budapest (2007).

With third place at the Judo World Championships in Rio de Janeiro , he qualified in September 2007 for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing . There he defeated competitors from the Congo, Ukraine and the People's Republic of China in his first fights, but lost to the South Korean world champion Kichun Wang in the semifinals . He won the bronze fight against the Belgian world number two Dirk van Tichelt with a Yuko rating. With this he secured his home country Tajikistan the very first medal at the Olympic Games. Four years later he finished seventh at the Olympic Games in London .

Web links

• Video of the bronze fight against Dirk van Tichelt, Olympic Summer Games in Beijing
• Rassul Boqijew in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )