Hristov, Alexander

Alexander Hristov was born on July 28, 1964 in the city of Plovdiv . In childhood, he dreamed of becoming a football player, trained in the football section, played the position of the left flank midfielder in the local Chavdar team and was even invited to the Bulgarian junior team. But at some point, his parents forbade him to play football because of poor grades at school, so the training had to be stopped. He began to actively engage in boxing at the age of sixteen in the boxing gym at the Lokomotiv sports club with his coach Yordan Kovachev. He achieved his first serious success in the ring in 1984, when he won the Balkan Championship in lightweight. A year later, reached the finals at the European Championships in Budapest, but in the decisive match with a score 1: 4 lost to Yugoslav Lyubisha Simich . In 1986, for the first time he took part in the standings of the adult world championship, at the competitions in the American city of Reno in the quarter finals he was knocked out by Korean Moon Song Gil , who became the champion in the end, in addition, he attended the Goodwill Games in Moscow, where he also failed to become one of the winners . At the 1987 European Championships in Turin, he defeated all his rivals, including such titled boxers as Rene Brightbart and Yuri Alexandrov in the semifinals and finals, respectively, thus winning a gold medal.

Thanks to a series of successful appearances, he won the right to defend the country's honor at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul , managed to break into the finals, where he lost to Kennedy McKinney , the future world champion among professionals. Nevertheless, having received a silver Olympic medal, Hristov was forced to suspend his career due to discovered tumors in the muscles of his left hand. For two years he underwent intensive treatment, managed to defeat the disease and in 1990 returned to the ring again.

After returning to the big sport, Alexander Hristov for a long time could not get into the main team of Bulgaria, lost the national championships and played mainly in minor tournaments. In 1993, he still managed to take the lightweight title, the athlete visited the European Championships in Bursa, where he lost to the tournament winner Raimkul Malakhbekov , and won the gold in the world championship in Tampere, defeating Cuban Hoel Casamayor , the recent Olympic champion in the final. A year later, Hristov continued to show good results, in particular, he won the World Cup in Bangkok. In 1996, he received a bronze medal at the European Championships in Vejle and went to the Olympic Games in Atlanta , where, however, in the first match he was defeated by a little-known Venezuelan boxer Carlos Barreta. Shortly after this tournament, Hristov decided to finally finish his career, in total on an amateur level he spent 380 fights, of which he was a loser in only 15 ^[1] .

• Alexander Hristov - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com