The much lauded Strandja Memorial Tournament got underway yesterday in the Bulgarian capital with the first set of preliminaries. The action was top drawer with some quality boxing delighting the fans in the packed arena.

Belarus' Youth Olympian and multiple National Champion Vadzym Kirilenka turned to 20 last December and had a quick contest against Bulgaria's Mitko Metodiev. The referee stopped their bout in the first round while another Bulgarian light flyweight boxer, European Championships bronze medallist Georgi Andonov was defeated by Azerbaijan's Munasib Mammadov in the quarter-final.


Bulgaria's London 2012 Olympics quarter-finalist Aleksandar Aleksandrov moved up a weight class following the Games and used up his experiences to beat Serbia's AIBA European Olympic Qualifiers competitor Milos Baltic by 16:8. Aleksandrov advanced to the semi-final of the event and secured the first Bulgarian medal in Sofia.


Russia's former AIBA World Champion and two-time Olympian Sergey Vodopiyanov is member of the national squad since 2005 but he had some unexpected losses in the recent years. The Russia star is trying to find the way back to the winning path and on his first contest in 2013 he defeated Belarus' WSB boxer Dzmitriy Strygelskiy by 20:8.


One of the best fight of the first competition day was held between Russia's European Youth Championships silver medallist Radzhab Butayev and Greece's supertalented teenager Alexandros Tsanikidis. Both boxers did their best while the Russian light welterweight boxer was able to keep his advantage in the final frame and advanced to the next round. The final verdict of their close battle was 12:9 to experienced Butayev.


Belarus' Rustam Adzinayeu was silver medallist in their last National Championships on November but selected to take part in the Strandja Memorial Tournament. The Belarussian boxer met with Brazil's biggest talent, South American Champion teenager Joedison Teixeira in the first preliminary round. Adzinayeu made his best ever performance in the international level and eliminated his top rival winning the bout by 18:17.


Teixeira's teammate, Roberto Queiroz involved to the national squad only last year and opened his competition in Sofia against Azerbaijan's Bahruz Babayev. Their welterweight class battle ended with the victory of the South American boxer 12:6 while a returning competitor, former Strandja Tournament winner Nikolay Koev of Bulgaria also made his successful debut in the current event.


Russia's European Championships quarter-finalist Islam Edisultanov is an extremely strong boxer who did not give too many chance to another favourite of the welterweight division, Ukraine's Vitaliy Konstantinov. The referee stopped the contest before the final gong and the Russian boxer will be able to continue the competition in the quarter-finals.


Uzbek National Championships bronze medallist Otabek Ibragimov has been competing in the international events since 2010 therefore his experiences were higher than his opponent Bulgaria's Adelin Zahariev. Their middleweight contest was close but Ibragimov won the battle as expected by 17:11. Russian U22 National Championships bronze medallist Vyacheslav Barsukov also made a successful debut in Sofia where he was too strong to Albania's Bekim Vjerdha.


Kazakhstan's former Asian Junior Champion Zhan Kosobutskiy was gold medallist at the 2010 National Championships and following some bad results he returned to the top of the competitions. The 24-year-old Central Asian boxer triumphed over top rivals in the recent months and did not give any winning chance to Italy's 19-year-old Guido Vianello who is competing in his first ever international elite competition.