James DeGale beats Olympic champion by Ian McNeilly Jan 21st 2008

England amateur international middleweight James DeGale confirmed his potential at world level when he beat current Olympic welterweight champion Bakhtiyar Artayev in Sheffield last night. The pair met in the 75kg final of a Multi-Nations tournament at the English Institute of Sport. In a hard-fought, absorbing contest, DeGale was judged a 19-16 winner. DeGale was overjoyed at hearing the announcement as not only did it confirm revenge for a previous loss to the Kazakh, it almost certainly means he'll go to the next Olympic qualification tournament in Pescara, Italy, rather than England squad team mate (and club mate at Dale Youth) who also boxes at 75kg, George Groves. Groves lost a third/fourth place box-off. It was a huge win for DeGale against the 24-year-old who is a sporting legend in his home country. Not only did Artayev win the gold in Athens, he even captured the treasured Val Barker trophy for the Games' most stylish boxer. ‘Chunky' even dropped his opponent with a peach of a right hook just before the end of the first round. Before this there were some very good exchanges, with DeGale, boxing out of the red corner, just on top. There were some hefty exchanges to the head in the second and the Kazakh's spirited work rate in the third seemed to indicate he knew he was behind. He had some success with body shots and must have had his spirits raised when DeGale was docked for a third warning for ducking in with his head. A good third was followed by a similarly good fourth and a hard head combination had DeGale temporarily holding. The Englishman rallied well and dug in to secure his win. “I know I can compete with the top guys in the world,” said a marked up but beaming DeGale afterwards. The Multi-Nations tournament between Great Britain, Sweden, Kazakhstan and France was supposed to see each nation enter a boxer at each of eleven weights but it didn't quite work out like that. I'd expected to see eleven finals at last night's evening session but I saw six of ten; four took place at the 2pm session. I don't follow the ams much but I enjoyed the show and will certainly be back to what is a wonderful facility which should be used far more often than it is, for boxing at least. The ABA are doing a good job at the EIS. I thought I had discovered a gem after watching another Kazakh in light-welter (64kg) Serik Sapiyev. You could tell he was class after about ten seconds and he had a style that would be well suited to the professional game. He hammered Sweden's Leon Chartoy 24-5. Then I was told Sapiyev is a double world champion (2005 and 2007). It was easy to see why. The Kazakhs, as one might have expected, dominated the finals. They had representatives in six of the finals and won five of them. There was a bit of a shock in the all-English light-flyweight final as Paul Butler beat Darren Langley 16-14. Finals results from the Sheffield Multi-Nations tournament: 48kg P Butler (ENG) bt D Langley (ENG) 16-14 51kg M Nazir (WAL) bt S Ntuve (SWE) 9-4 54kg L Campbell (ENG) bt C Jenkins (WAL) RSC3 60kg A Yegizekov (KAZ) bt D Sow (FRA) 15-15 (35-34 on countback) 64kg S Sapiyev (KAZ) bt L Chartoy (SWE) 24-5 69kg B Sarsebayev (KAZ) bt J Chiguer (FRA) 22-15 75kg J DeGale (ENG) bt B Artayev (KAZ) 19-16 81kg A Bouhenia (FRA) bt O Mbwakongo (ENG) 21-15 91+kg R Rygebayev (KAZ) bt M Samoudi (FRA) RSC2

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