Aiba XIII World Senior Boxing Championship-Jean clears first hurdle |15 November 2005

Jean, who received a 10-month scholarship from the Confejes (Conférence des ministres de la Jeunesse et des Sports des pays ayant le français en partage) and the Fonds Francophone pour la préparation olympique and has been training at the Tunisian Boxing Centre in Tunis since May, is making his first participation in the World Championship in Mianyang, China.

Fighting in the red corner on Sunday night in the 69-kg category, hard-hitting Jean completely dominated Israeli Sergey Golovandu with blows to the body, forcing the referee to stop his fight in the fourth round. He won by RSCB (Referee Stopped Contest Body) when leading 31-19 on points.

Jean, light middleweight (75-kg) gold medallist of both the Indian Ocean Islands Games in Mauritius in 2003 and the YMCA competition in India in 2004, will next fight American pugilist Boyd Arnold Melson who beat Japanese Hirano Yoshiyuki 24-12.

A win against American Melson will push Jean into the quarterfinal of the eight-day championship.

The remaining 12 69-kg category bouts winners were on Sunday were Som Bahadur Pun (India), Erislandi Lara Santoya (Cuba), Balanov Andrey (Russia), Xavier Noel
(France), Pedro A. Santo de Lima (Brazil), Spas Nikolaev Genov (Bulgaria), Artayev Bakhtiyar (Kazakhstan), Bulent Uldsoy (Turkey), Grusac Vitalii (Moldova), Juania (Georgia), Szili Istvan (Hungary) and Abdurahmonov Sherzod (Uzbekistan).

It must be noted that most boxers are using the competition as a good international training prior to the Beijing Olympic Games to be held in 2008 in China. 

G. G.