25.10.05 – COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. – A young, talented corps of athletes will represent the United States at the 2005 World Amateur Boxing Championships, November 12-21 in Mianyang City, China. The 11-athlete delegation is composed of eight reigning national champions, a World Military champion and a National PAL champ..
2004 Olympian Rau’shee Warren (Cincinnati, Ohio) will headline the talented team as he competes in his first senior World Championships. The 18-year-old is the first Olympian to return to amateur boxing since 1992 and will look to bring home flyweight (112 lbs) gold. Light welterweight Karl Dargan (Philadelphia, Pa.) will follow in his Olympic cousin Rock Allen’s footsteps as he competes in his first World Championships. Dargan boasts strong international experience, having competed in the 2003 Pan American Games, Titan Games, 2005 World Cup and numerous additional international events. Bantamweight Gary Russell, Jr. (Capitol Heights, Md.) is one of only two U.S. boxers to win titles at both the 2005 U.S. Championships and National Golden Gloves and added to his win total with a victory in his first-ever senior international bout at the World Cup in Moscow in July. Featherweight titlist Mark Davis (Cleveland, Ohio) has already enjoyed a successful 2005 both nationally and internationally, winning the 2005 U.S. Championships before taking two victories at the USA vs. Hungary Dual in May and a strong win at the AIBA World Cup.
The athletes rounding out the U.S. team are: 2005 light flyweight runner-up Vincent Montoya (Cheyenne, Wyo.); two-time lightweight national champion Michael Evans (Dayton, Ohio); 2004 World Military Champion and West Point graduate Boyd Melson (Fort Carson, Colo.); 2005 middleweight national champion Edwin Rodriguez (Worcester, Mass.); 2005 light heavyweight national champion William Rosinsky (Brooklyn, N.Y.); 2005 National PAL heavyweight champion Adam Willett (Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.); and two-time super heavyweight national champion Mike Wilson (Central Point, Ore.).
USA Boxing National Coaching Director Dan Campbell (Hampton, Va.) will lead an impressive coaching staff made up of Ted Palac (Hamtramck, Mich.) and Thomas Coulter (Syracuse, N.Y.).
The 2005 World Championships Team will split their preparatory training camp between the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and training facilities in China. The team will converge in Colorado Springs on October 23 and spend ten days at the Olympic Training Center before departing for China on November 4.
World Championships competition will commence on November 13 and run through November 21 at the Mianyang Sports Gymnasium in Mianyang City of Sichuan Province in China. Opening ceremonies of the event will take place on November 12 with preliminary competition running from Sunday, November 13-17. Semifinal bouts will be contested on November 19 with the championship bouts taking place on Sunday, November 20.
USA Boxing, as the national governing body for Olympic-style boxing, is the United States’ member organization of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) and a member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).