Mongolia is holding its own in the Olympic and World championship boxing rings – especially for a country of a little over 3 million people. Mongolians are tough, resilient and very proud people and their disciplined and varied life-style have helped them succeed, mainly in recent times on the international amateur boxing stage.

Amateur boxing emerged there in 1948 and in 1960 the Mongolian Olympic boxing team was formed. Mongolia first entered the summer Olympics in 1964 and has been present ever since, apart from 1984, when it joined the old Soviet led boycott of the Games. Their first foray into the Olympic ring came in 1972 in Munich.

Seven Olympic boxing medals have been acquired – one gold, two silver and four bronze; while ten medals have been bagged at the AIBA Men’s World championships – one gold, four silver and five bronze. Quite an impressive haul for a very small country, (population wise, and one which is spread over a huge land mass).

In 1988 a bronze went to lightweight N.Enkhbat and four years later in 1992 another bronze was won by the fists of another lightweight N.Bayarsaikhan. Some fallow years then followed until 2008 when Mongolia’s initial (and so far only) gold medal was secured by bantamweight, E.Badar-Uugan who outpointed Cuba’s Yankiel Leon in the final.

In London in 2012 another silver went to flyweight N.Tugstogt who lost out on points to the Cuban Robeisy Ramirez in a close and tough final, while light-welterweight U.Monkh-Erdene weighed in with a bronze having narrowly eclipsed on points Team GB’s Thomas Stalker along the way.

In Rio in 2016, lightweight, D.Otgondalaai [pictured] picked up a bronze losing out to eventual French silver medallist, Sofian Oumiha.

So Mongolia has been building up a useful Olympic medal pedigree of late, especially with a very small population on the global stage, and they aim to continue this trend in Tokyo in 2020. (Boxing News Online)