The likewise triple World lightweight (60 kg) champ started off the year winning the Acropolis Cup, in Athens, Greece, and Halle’s ´ traditional Chemistry Cup, in Germany, labeled as one of the most prestigious contests in the Old Continent.

Later, he easily won the 2nd Cuban Sports National Olympiad and ratified his hopes to keeping in Athens showcase the crown won four years ago in Sydney, Australia.

“I don’t think in other thing, but to return from Greece with the gold medal”, announced then the left-hander boxer, idol of the eastern province of Holguín.

Targeting that dream, he won five bouts on Hellenic soil, where he turned 33 years old and more than one specialists deemed him worthy of the Val Barker Cup, which the International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA) finally granted to Kazakhstan’s welterweight Bakhtiyar Artayev.

Ninety-seven blows in favor and seven against, as well as the display of his ever winning yield on the ring marked his performance at the Peristeri Hall, amid the constant harassment of both reporters and fans.

“My dream was to retire from the active boxing as double Olympic champ and I accomplished it”, said the Antillean after a coronation that shattered the predictions of the promoted English Amir Khan, really insistent by considering favorite himself in his previous contacts with the press.

“I have spent a lot of time in trainings and competitions, and I want to devote myself to my family more, although I am not going to separate myself from the sports completely”, said Kindelán, one of the candidates to get a place in the annual sports poll of Prensa Latina news agency, that included him among the stars in 2003.

Then his belts clinched at the World Championship in Bangkok, Thailand, and the Pan Ams in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic played a key role so that he could also take the award for Best Cuban Athlete of the Year.

This outstanding Cuban boxer also crowned in the Usti Nad Laben, in the Czech Republic, and the Strandzha, in Bulgaria, voted in the two as the Most Technical Competitor.

By: Cubasí