The Asian/Oceanian qualifying event on the Boxing Road to Tokyo kicks off in Amman, Jordan, today. The competition, being held at the Prince Hamza Hall, will run until 11 March, and will see 221 athletes (151 men and 70 women) from 35 countries competing for 63 Olympic quota places. Over 200 bouts are going to be taking place during the event, where some of the best boxers in the world will try their utmost to secure a ticket to Tokyo.
The 63 Tokyo 2020 quota places to be distributed in Amman:
| Men | Woman | ||
| Weight categories (kg) | Quota places | Weight categories (kg) | Quota places |
| Fly (48kg to 52kg) | 6 | Fly (48kg to 51kg) | 6 |
| Feather (52kg to 57kg) | 6 | Feather (54kg to 57kg) | 4 |
| Light (57kg to 63kg) | 6 | Light (57kg to 60kg) | 4 |
| Welter (63kg to 69kg) | 5 | Welter (64kg to 69kg) | 4 |
| Middle (69kg to 75kg) | 5 | Middle (69 kg to 75kg) | 4 |
| Light Heavy (75kg to 81kg) | 5 | ||
| Heavy (81kg to 91kg) | 4 | ||
| Super Heavy (+91kg) | 4 | ||
| TOTAL | 41 | 22 |
Athletes to watch in Amman
Eyes will be on India’s superstar boxer Chungneijang Mary Kom Hmangte, a six-time world champion and five-time Asian champion, competing in the women’s flyweight category. Here in Amman she will meet the 2019 world champion Huang Hsiao Wen from Chinese Taipei, as well as the 2014 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) gold medallist and 2018 world champion Chang Yuan of China. In the women’s featherweight event, reigning world champion Nesthy Petecio (Philippines) will once again face 2018 Asian Games winner Yin Junhua of China, and three-time youth world champion Sakshi Choudhary of India.
Rio 2016 Olympic champion and reigning world champion Shakhobiddin Zoirov of Uzbekistan will be in the spotlight in the men’s flyweight category, which will also see Kazakhstan’s Saken Bibossynov (a 2019 world championship bronze medallist) competing for a Tokyo 2020 Olympic quota place. Jordan’s Obada Al-Kasbeh – a 2019 Asian silver medallist – will compete in the lightweight on home turf, where he will come up against the likes of Thailand’s 2018 YOG champion Atichai Phoemsap and Mongolia’s 2018 Asian Games silver medallist Chinzorig Baatarsukh.
New Zealand’s biggest medal hope, David Nyika – a two-time Commonwealth Games champion – will be the man to watch in the heavyweight category, where he will face three-time Asian champion Vasiliy Levit of Kazakhstan. In the lead-up to the competition, Nyika said: “I have trained extremely hard for this tournament in Amman. It is hard to say who could be my biggest opponent there, as there are likely to be many dark horses throughout the tournament. I must therefore respect each of my opponents and treat each fight like a gold-medal match.”
The Boxing Road to Tokyo
Amman is hosting the second leg of the Boxing Road to Tokyo series, and follows the African qualifier held in Dakar, Senegal, from 20 to 29 February, where 198 athletes from 38 countries competed in 192 bouts to secure the 33 Olympic quota places at stake. Three additional qualifying events will be conducted in the next few months, in London (European qualifier, 14-24 March), Buenos Aires (Americas qualifier, 26 March-3 April) and Paris (world qualifier, 13-20 May), to distribute a total of 286 Olympic quota places. The series will see 186 male boxers and 100 female boxers qualify for Tokyo.
Follow the action live
Fans can watch the action live on the Olympic Channel, with all the women’s and men’s bouts across all weight categories available with commentary in English, Russian and Hindi, beginning on 3 March at 11 a.m. EET (local time). Coverage will be available in all territories worldwide for free at olympicchannel.com and on its apps for mobile and connected TV devices.
News, photos and results will be posted online on the dedicated Amman qualifier page of the Athlete365 Boxing Corner platform. We encourage fans to join the conversation online using the hashtag #Boxing.
Event schedule
The session schedule for the Asian/Oceanian qualifying event can be found here.
