In all there were 72 bouts in eight weight divisions and the Americans enjoyed strong progress across the categories as the tournament now reaches the quarter final stage from tomorrow.

US pinweight Junior National Champion Jesse Rodriguez ovecame home favourite Nikita Golovkin, Russia’s EUBC European Schoolboys Champion, while Angel Martinez, who was awarded the best boxer trophy in the US Junior National Golden Gloves Championships, won at light flyweight against Philippines’ Cris Sander Laurente.

Sixteen-year-old California native Marc Castro reached the quarter finals at bantamweight by out-performing Russian Pavel Ryasniy and at lightweight, Harley Mederos was too good for Englishman Mark Dickinson.

At light welterweight, Leon Lawson eliminated Tajikistan's Fozil Radzhabaliyev and the sixth win for the Americans was at heavyweight level as Richard Torrez stopped Moldova's Tudor Grisman in the opening round.

Castro said: "I thought it was a tough fight against a tough opponent, who came to fight, so I am satisfied with my performance.

"I was thinking about the gold medal, that I can’t let my opponent ruin my dream of winning that gold, and that I have already put the work in the gym so I have to trust my abilities.

"One of my coaches told me to fight like this is the gold medal bout, and that’s what I did.

"My opponent was hard hitting, slick, and a tall fighter who could fight both southpaw and orthodox.

"He made me work for this victory."

Elsewhere at bantamweight, Cuba's Alexei Rodriguez displayed a range of punches to come through against Kazakhstan’s current ASBC Asian Junior Champion Sanatali Toltayev.

There were surprise results too as Japan's Takumi Tamura defeated Ukraine’s current EUBC European Junior Champion Artem Demianenko at light flyweight while Azerbaijan’s Orkhan Hasanov saw off highly rated Dane Mahdi Hassan Jallaw at bantamweight.




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