(COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.) – The United States’ top boxers in all 11 weight divisions are currently in preparations for the 2009 World Amateur Boxing Championships, September 1-12 in Milan, Italy. All of the winners in the men’s open division from the recent USA Boxing National Championships will enjoy the chance to test their skills against the best boxers in the world at the bi-annual event in Italy..
The team will hold a preparatory training camp, August 17-23 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs before departing for Milan on August 24. They will complete their preparations on Italian soil prior to opening competition on Tuesday, September 1.
The 11 boxers representing the United States at the event will be: light flyweight Miguel Cartagena (Philadelphia, Pa.); flyweight Louie Byrd (Denver, Colo.); bantamweight Jesus Magdaleno (Las Vegas, Nev.); featherweight Kevin Rivers (Landover, Md.); lightweight Duran Caferro (Helena, Mont.); light welterweight Frankie Gomez (Los Angeles, Calif.); middleweight Terrell Gausha (Cleveland, Ohio); light heavyweight Robert Brant (White Bear Lake, Minn.); heavyweight Jordan Shimmell (Hudsonville, Mich.); and super heavyweight Michael Hunter (Las Vegas, Nev.).
Anthony Bradley (Clayton, N.C.); Patrick Barry (Las Vegas, Nev.); Augustine Sanchez (Las Vegas, Nev.); and Ron Simms (Camp Lejeune, N.C.) will serve as the coaches for the event with Nick Cimmento (Fort Mills, N.C.) and Darryl Van Note (Otis Orchards, Wash.) will work as the Team Manager and Team Assistant respectively. Dr. Robin Goodfellow (Albion, Mich.) will join the squad as the Team Physician.
Hunter is the lone U.S. boxer to have competed in a World Championships event before, having boxed in the 2007 World Championships in Chicago, Ill., and advancing to the quarterfinal round. Byrd will be competing in his first senior world championships after representing the United States in the Cadet Worlds as a junior boxer. Rivers and Brant also boast world championships experience at the Under-19 level, after boxing in the Youth World Championships in October.
The silver medalists from the 2009 USA Boxing National Championships will join the World Championships team for training camp in Colorado Springs before they depart for Italy. Boxers from over 100 countries across the globe will convene in Milan for the 2009 World Championships, which will be contested at the Mediolanum Forum.
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). It is responsible for the selection and management of the United States Olympic Boxing Team, and for the governance and oversight of USA Boxing’s national organization of 38,000 members, 1,400 individual boxing clubs, and 1,600 sanctioned events annually.