The International Association of Amateur Boxing (AIBA) named Ukrainian Oleksandr Khyzhniak, world champion of 2017 at middleweights, the best adult boxer of 2017. The best woman boxer of the past year was the silver medalist of the Olympics-2016 Dutch Nahka Fontaine (75 kg). Russians Anastasia Shamonova and Nikita Piskunov received awards to the best young boxers of 2017.
Awarding took place on Friday at the first International Boxing Forum in Sochi.
"This is an incredible recognition and an extremely honorable reward for me. I am grateful to the international boxing community, the president of the FBU Vladimir Prodivus, the first vice-president of the FBU Dmitry Shentsev, my father and coach Oleksandr Khyzhniak, the coaching staff of the Ukrainian team led by Dmitry Sosnovsky and, of course, all the supporters. This is our joint victory," said Khyzhniak at the award ceremony. "Such awards are a great incentive for even more motivation to work for the sake of obtaining new peaks. My main goal is the Olympic Games award and I will do everything I can to prepare for the world championship in 2019 and get a pass for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics."
