2024-07-10 10:18:18
Photo: RL Hevia
Text: Cuba News 360 Editorial Team
Cuban boxing will experience a historic night on August 27 when the Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum will be dressed up to host the International Boxing Association (IBA) Champions Night.
Six professional fights between Cuban and visiting stars will add color to the first event of its kind to be held in Cuba and will be the culmination of the activities for the international day of this sport, according to the JIT publication.
The president of the Cuban Federation of the discipline, Alberto Puig de la Barca, stressed that the event will be dedicated to the world championship held in 1974 at the emblematic Havana facility.
The director assured that work is being done on the design of the poster with the aim of guaranteeing high-level fights, to achieve a show on par with previous editions and a celebration as important as the world competition dominated by Cuba for 50 years.
Two and a half months before the event, the organizers have not yet decided which fighters will take part, but Puig’s intention is “for our top figures to compete with men who are equally established in the elite,” he told the aforementioned media outlet.
The IBA Champions Nights emerged in 2023 as one of the initiatives of this new organization to establish itself in the boxing universe. Numerous Cuban fighters, such as the Olympic champions Julio César La Cruz and Arlen López, have participated in several previous editions.
This duo will lead the depleted boxing squad in Paris, representing the island’s boxing scene, which for the first time since 1960 will be competing at the Olympic Games with fewer than six players.
Like La Cruz (92kg) and López (81), the 2023 world runner-up, Saidel Horta (57), obtained his qualification at the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile, while Alejandro Claro (51) did so at the pre-Olympic in Busto Arsizio last March, and Erislandy Álvarez (63.5) got the last ticket in the Bangkok qualifier, at the beginning of this month.