Bulgaria’s Anton Petrov takes on Sweden’s Nils Olsson at 67kg

Over seven hours of amateur muaythai today across two rings as the men’s competition opened for the muaythai world championships. A number of champions advanced but others were left stunned by defeat as new faces made their mark, and the Mexican home support certainly left their mark – on our ears! 

One of the stand-out bouts was at 63.5kg when Thai champion Sawarat Kusari faced American’s Asa Tenpow. Fast-paced from the opening bell, Asa soon put the presure on with spinning back-kicks and powerful body-punches. Sawarat is a very technical athlete but in the end could not withstand the storm, and bowed out of the tournament.

His team-mate and defending world champion Wiwat Khamta did take a good win, advancing to the next round.

Another exciting and high-decibel battle saw Belarus’ Andrei Kulebin, usually a crowd favourite face local athlete Marco Antonio Fuentes Garibay. The 3-rounder was full of surprises but Kulebin stayed focused on the win taking a points victory with clever use of high-kicks, and strong teeps mixed with fast hands combinations. The crowd stood to their feet for the young Mexican athlete.

Asa Tenpow USA – photo Jeff Dojillo for USMF

Team Colombia had a great day at their first world championships with IFMA  – winning three out of three bouts. Peru also had a successful start winning four of their six bouts for the day. And team Ukraine also sent through all of their competing athletes today, including The World Games medalists Vasyl Sorokin, Sergei Kulebin and Igor Liubchenko.

Full results of all bouts on IFMA Live

Tomorrow’s bouts sees the opening of the women’s competition and more from the men’s divisions.

Keep up with live results on IFMA LIve, and follow IFMA on social media for behind-the-scenes updates:

IFMA Facebook  IFMA Instagram IFMA TWitter and of course watch live action on IFMA Youtube.