By Zhenyu Li

Despite with a fresh roster, China managed to deliver two boxers to the semi finals at the on-going Worlds nine days into the tournament.

Light flyweight Jiazhao Li and super heavyweight Zhilei Zhang both rolled into the Final Four with imposing victories with tough oppositions, ensuring two bronzes, to say the least, for the eastern rising power.

Jiazhao Li, a rookie at the international stage struck the first stunning blow for Team China on the 9th day by sweeping up the world's 3rd ranked Polish opponent Kukasz Maszczyk 14-1.

The substitute for the Grand Slam boxing champion Shiming Zou started off slow, edging his rivalry by 2-1 margin, yet it was the only point the Polish connected throughout the entire confrontation.

Utilizing his speed and quick reflexes, the Chinese who was making his international debut got a furious second round, completing dominating his foe with a 7-0, taking a 9-1 wide lead into the last stanza.

He renewed his dominance battering the No.3 ranked European boxer by a large margin 5-0 before referee stepped in to stop this meaningless mismatch.

Striking his first pose on the Worlds' stage, Jiazhao Li waltzed through the quarterfinal contest.

Zhilei Zhang, the team leader and China's biggest hopeful for medal joined Li two and a half hours afterwards, dumping his sturdy adversary Primislav Dimovski 6-2. The eastern European pugilist hammered his way to the quarter finals, smashing his antagonists respectively by 21-3 and 21-0.

The Olympic silver medalist measured up his opponent in the opening round, evening it 1-1.

Exploiting his favored experience, Zhang quickly adapted to Dimovski's style, outclassing the eastern European 3-0 in the second stanza.

Trailing behind by 4 points, Dimovski started off strong coming into the third, but the Chinese was no pushover as he sustained his foe's onslaughts and remained in full control all through the last round, winning it 2-1.

"Zhilei suppressed his opponent by implementing our pre-arranged tactics well," Jinhua Gu, Zhang's long-time handler told me right after the fight. "We've done a lot of works on this eastern European boxer beforehand."

Li and Zhang will respectively square off against Serdamba Purevdorj from Mongolia and Roman Kapitonenko from Ukraine in their semifinal clashes tomorrow.

 

Zhenyu Li is the bilingual sports and culture columnist for People’s Daily online. His agent can be reached at sunboxing@gmail.com