Zhusupov, Ablaykhan Kairatovich

“There are five of us brothers. I was seven years old when my mother, in consultation with my father, brought me to a boxing school in the city of Abay. She, I suppose, didn’t want me to waste time on the street. At that time, Serik Sapiev from our city just won the world championship. Sapiev’s victory gave a powerful impetus to the development of boxing in Abai, where boxing halls began to open in large numbers ” ^[1] .

Currently a student at Karaganda State University .

A pupil of the famous Abay school of boxing, where the world champions among professionals Oleg Maskaev and Natalya Ragozina made their first steps in sports, Serik Sapiev, champion of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London , also started boxing ^[2] . From the age of seven, Ablai Khan began boxing at a sports school in Abay at the Bakhytzhan Amanbaev MSMK , which brought him to the adult team of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

He first proved himself at the age of 15, when in weight of 52 kg he won the international games "Children of Asia" (2012) in Yakutsk ( Russia ) ^[3] .

At 16, in 2013 came the first big successes. In February, he became the champion of Kazakhstan among young men in Karaganda in the weight of 57 kg, in April he won the Asian Junior Championship in Shymkent , and in September won the title of world champion among juniors in Kiev ( Ukraine ) ^[4] . In 2013, the International Amateur Boxing Association ( AIBA ) recognized Zhusupov as the best young boxer.

In January 2014, he won 60 kg at the Asian Youth Championships in Bangkok ( Thailand ) and was recognized as the best boxer of the championship ^[5] . In April, he won the youth world championship in Sofia ( Bulgaria ) ^[6] . In August, Ablai Khan won a gold medal at the Second Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing ( China ), beating the Cuban Alain Limonte Bud in the final by points of last year’s junior world champion (60 kg) ^[7] . In December 2014, Ablai Khan, under the age of 18, was admitted to participate in the XXXI international tournament in memory of the honored coach Galym Zharylgapov and won the tournament in the weight category of 64 kg (the category of Zharylgapov himself), receiving a prize - a car ^[8] .

In May 2015, he took third place in Minsk ( Belarus ) at the international tournament in memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union Viktor Liventsev ^[9] .

At the beginning of 2016, the coach of the national boxing team of Kazakhstan, Myrzagali Aitzhanov, invited the 19-year-old Zhusupov to the adult team and he immediately won the Istvan Bochkaya Memorial in Hungary, defeating Cuban champion Lorenzo Sotomayor in Azerbaijan in the finals of the First European Games . In April, Ablayhan on the Asian qualifying round in China, where the Olympic licenses were played in Rio de Janeiro , took first place in the category up to 64 kg, having won a license for the Olympics. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (August), the youngest boxer of the Olympics 19-year-old Zhusupov performed in the first welterweight of up to 64 kg and lost in the first fight to the European vice-champion Briton Pat McCormack ^[10] . In November 2016, Zhusupov won the Kazakhstan championship in Pavlodar in a new 69 kg weight category (category of Kazakh Olympic champions Bakhtiyar Artayev -2004, Bakyt Sarsekbaev -2008, Serik Sapiev- 2012 and Daniyar Eleusinova -2016) ^[11] .

At the 2017 Asian Championships (May) in Tashkent , the welterweight of 69 kg reached the final, where he lost the championship to the silver medalist of the 2016 Olympics to Uzbek boxer Shahram Giyasov ^[12] . At the 2017 World Championships (September) in Hamburg , he lost the future champion to the same Giyasov in the semifinal and won a bronze medal ^[13] .

In March 2018, Zhusupov won the 37th international tournament Gee Bee (Gunnar Bärlund memorial) in Finland ( Helsinki ) ^[14] , but in June lost in Astana in the final of the President’s Cup to his rival Aslanbek Shymbergenov ^[15] . And I did not get to the Summer Asian Games 2018 , held in August in Indonesia . But in November in Aktau he took revenge - knocked down Shymbergenov in the final and won the second “gold” of the championship of Kazakhstan ^[16] .

In February 2019, five Kazakhstan boxers reached the final of the Strandja international tournament in Bulgaria, but they all lost, and Zhusupov starred due to injury ^[17] . In June, he won an international tournament (10 countries) in memory of Isatay Taimanov and Makhambet Utemisov in Atyrau ^[18] . And in July, he won the VII international boxing tournament for the President’s Cup of Kazakhstan (13 countries) and was recognized as the best boxer of the tournament ^[19] .

At the 2019 World Cup in Yekaterinburg , Ablai Khan reached the semifinals in which he lost to the boxer from Russia Andrei Zamkov and won the bronze medal of the World Cup.