• Submitted by: admin
• Sports
• 01 / 13 / 2007

Double Olympic champion Guillermo Rigondeux headlines a field of world class boxers in Cuba's Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) Boxing Championship, which runs from Monday to Thursday in the central province of Sancti Spiritus.

Considered by some the best amateur boxer in the world, Rigondeux won gold medals in the 54kg category in the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games. He is seeking his eighth Giron title in a competition he has won every year since 2000.

Rigondeux's last loss was in 1999 to Havana's Waldemar Fonst, who went on to win the Playa Giron title.

Inocente Fiss, bronze medallist at the 2005 World Championships in China, is also much watched. If he wins the light-middleweight category, he will match the national titles record set by retired great Hector Vinent, who also won two Olympic gold medals.

Fiss has won every year since 2001. His main rival is Yudel Johnson, who won silver in Athens.

A total of 230 boxers will compete in the Yayabo Multi-Gym in the city of Sancti Spiritus. The competition will decide 11 fighters who will represent Cubain the 2007 Panamerican Games qualifiers, which will run from Feb. 1 to Feb. 9 in Venezuelan capital, Caracas.