The bronze medal will be awarded to Turkmen athlete Bairamdurdy Nurmukhammedov on the final day of the boxing tournament at the XIX Summer Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. This was determined by the results of his semifinal fight in the weight category up to 71 kg with Kang Chia Wei (Taiwan), quarterfinalist of the previous Asian Games-2018 in Indonesia.

Boxing at the current Asian Games is one of the nine sports, in which not only medals are played, but also tickets to the Olympic Games-2024 in Paris. And that's why boxing competitions here arouse increased interest.

Bairamdurdy Nurmukhammedov's duel with Kang Chia Wei, the winner of which not only reached the final, but also received a license to participate in the upcoming 2024 Olympics, was no exception.

Before the fight, many experts at the Asian Games in Hangzhou predicted victory for the Turkmen boxer. And it is not without reason. At the start of the tournament, a 21-year-old native of Magtymguly town, a ward of Yazmukhammet Pazzyev, won 5:0 against Davud Makhkamov from Tajikistan, a participant of the 2023 World Championship in Tashkent, and finished the next two fights early with a clear advantage, defeating by technical knockout Nidal Foqahaa from Palestine and a strong Mongolian boxer Tuguldur Byambatsogt, who refused to continue in the third round.

Kang Chia Wei also had three fights before the semifinals, in which he won not as convincing victories as our athlete, over Nuradin Rustambek Uulu (Kyrgyzstan), Niraja Galani Gamage (Sri Lanka) and Mohd Aswan Bin Che Azmi (Malaysia).

In the first round, all five judges gave victory to the representative of Taiwan with a minimum advantage of 10:9. In the second, B. Nurmukhammedov moved to more decisive actions, stunning his opponent with an attacking onslaught and powerful blows. From the outside, it seemed that the boxers were fighting for life and death. The price of an Olympic ticket was already very high. Apparently, unable to withstand such a pace, the athlete from Taiwan even began to fall. Nevertheless, at the end of the second round, two judges from Germany and Slovakia have already given the victory to the Turkmen boxer.

In the final round, Bairamdurdy intensified the onslaught on Kang Chia Wei, who fell in the ring for the third time during the fight. It seemed that a little more and our boxer would finish his opponent. And then the referee stops the fight and invites a representative of the medical service to examine the dissected eyebrow of an athlete from Taiwan. The doctor first wipes the blood from Kang Chia Wei's face, then from B. Nurmukhamedov's face and allows the fight to continue.

The Turkmen boxer continues to attack, trying to finish the fight ahead of schedule. And then, 1 minute 11 seconds before the end of the fight, the referee in the ring Leonid Khanevich from Latvia again invites a representative of the medical service to the ring, who, after examining the dissected eyebrow of Kang Chia Wei, does not allow the fight to continue.

At those moments, it seemed that B. Nurmukhammedov had the victory in this duel, and along with it, the ticket to the Olympic Games. But it was not there. After a while, the judge in the ring raises Kang Chia Wei's hand, and the representative of Taiwan is declared the winner of the fight. As it turned out later, having given the victory in the unfinished third round to the Turkmen boxer – 3:2, the arbitrators, following the results of three rounds, issued a verdict – 4:1 in favor of his opponent.

It should be noted that this scandalous fight with the participation of a Turkmen boxer due to the decision of the arbitrators at the Asian Games did not go unnoticed by representatives of other delegations, in particular, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, who were outraged by such refereeing and were unanimous in the opinion that Bairamdurdy Nurmukhammedov boxed better in the ring and deserved to win.

And this was not the only scandalous boxing match at the Asian Games. In the next semi-final fight in the same weight category, in which the current world and Asian champion Aslanbek Shymbergenov from Kazakhstan had an undeniable advantage over Sewon Okazava (Japan) and even sent an opponent to a knockdown, the judges gave the victory to the Japanese boxer.

"They stole the victory," the delegation of Kazakhstan lamented after the fight.

"This is not boxing, this is a circus," world champion Kairat Yeraliev reacted to the result of the fight.

Faced with biased judging with the participation of a Turkmen boxer, the Boxing Federation and the National Olympic Committee of Turkmenistan tried to protest the result of the fight. However, they were denied such an opportunity, referring to the rules adopted at the Asian Games.

In this regard, representatives of the NOC of Turkmenistan have prepared a letter to the judging committee of the International Olympic Committee, in which they urged to pay the most serious attention to objectivity in boxing matches and to help ensure that such a situation would not happen again at the next Olympic qualification boxing tournaments.

It should be noted that the International Boxing Association (IBA) has long been shaken by scandals with refereeing. In June this year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) even stripped the recognition of the IBA due to "complete disrespect for the principles of international sport." All this, of course, is sad and does not contribute to the development of this popular sport in the world.

Meanwhile, competitions in other sports are continuing at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

In the weightlifting competition, Bunyad Rashidov (weight category up to 67 kg) entered the top six among 16 athletes with a result of 298 kg (snatch – 140 kg, clean and jerk– 158 kg), and Bektimur Reyimov (up to 73 kg) took 9^th place among 14 weightlifters with a total of 312 kg (snatch – 142 kg, clean and jerk– 170 kg).

In the athletics program, Jennet Mukhamova, threw a javelin at 47.73 meters in her best attempt, finishing in 11^th position.

The Greco-Roman wrestling tournament started today at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. Turkmenistan is represented by five athletes in this discipline. Three of them – Arslanbek Zakirbayev (up to 60 kg), Mansur Nurberdyev (up to 67 kg) and Azym Annamammedov (up to 87 kg) – have already completed the competition. After the defeat in the first round by Khaser Alizadeh (Iran), A.Annamammedov could grab the bronze through a consolation tournament. However, he did not take advantage of this chance, losing to Atabek Azisbekov (Kyrgyzstan).

Tomorrow, representatives of karate (WKF) and jiu-jitsu, in which Turkmenistan has four athletes each, will compete for medals at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.