Photo: http://www.perlavision.icrt.cu
Astana.- On June 21 Cuba’s Domadores lost the battle for the title of the World Series of Boxing (WSB) after being defeated 4-6 in the final of the fifth edition of the competition by Kazakhstan’s Astana Wolves.
After their previous 2-3 defeat on June 20, the Cubans needed at least three wins to level the playing field and force a deciding match, but they once again suffered an adverse result during the Sunday final they were favored to win.
And just like that the Cuban team’s chance of becoming the first franchise to win two successive editions of the novel competition disappeared.
The surprising defeats suffered by Yosbany Veitía (52 kilograms) and Roniel Iglesias (69kg) greatly reduced the Domadores team’s odds of retaining the title, given that they - in addition to Lázaro Álvarez and Julio César La Cruz - were the bases on which technical coach Rolando Acebal planned to repeat the result of 2014.
Veitía, unbeaten after seven previous fights in the Fifth WSB competition, was defeated 3-0 (49:46, 49:46 and 49:46) by unanimous decision against Olzhas Sattibayev, while Iglesias who dominated in the first two rounds, was later overwhelmed by Aslanbek Shymbergenov, losing the fight 3-0 (48:47, 48:47 and 50:45).
In addition to these two losses came the expected defeat of super heavyweight Yohandi Toirac against his idol, Kazak Iván Dychko, 3-0 (50:45, 50:45 and 50:45), in the match which secured Kazakhstan the title.
Cuba’s only wins of the day came from Álvarez (60kg) who defeated Zakir Safiullin 2-1 - fulfilling predictions although not convincingly as proven by the judges’ scores (49:46, 49:46 and 47:48) - and La Cruz (81kg), who beat Nurdaulet Zharmanov 3-0 (49:46, 50:45 and 50:45).
