At the Olympics, Azerbaijan is a middleweight country in a handful of manly sports, including wrestling, weightlifting and boxing. They typically field a large boxing squad, but the country is not the medal-earning powerhouse of Cuba or Russia. In the last three Summer Games, Azerbaijan has earned a respectable, but unremarkable four bronze medals.
The London Games offers the Azeris their best chance for winning Olympic silver or gold yet. At the forefront of the team are its super heavyweight and heavyweight boxers, Majidov and Mammadov. Both are the top-ranked fighters of their divisions, having carried the gold and silver respectively at the 2011 Baku World Amateur Championships. The remainder of the team is made up of a mix of novices and second-tier amateur veterans, but even the novices have plenty of experience from having participated in the World Series of Boxing (WSB). It is a good bet that the entire Azeri team will advance to at least the Round of 16 (the second round of the tournament), and many should make it to the quarter-finals.
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- Magomed Abdulhamidov (Bantamweight): This 25 year old is a former WSB competitor, and bagged a bronze and a silver from the European Olympic Qualifiers. Abdulhamidov is unranked.
- Heybatulla Hajialiyev (Light Welterweight): The 21 year old Hajialiyev is an fringe contender for a medal in London. He managed to win a bronze at the 2011 Ankara European Confederation Championship, but was eliminated before the medal rounds of the 2011 Baku World Championships. He is good, but will need a bit of luck to if he wants to make the semi-finals at the London Games.
- Vatan Huseynli (Light Heavyweight): Another WSB competitor, the 20 year old Huseynli is somewhat lacking in major international amateur experience. The WSBs aside, his only other major appearance was at the 2012 Olympic qualifiers, where he won silver. He is unranked.
- Magomedrasul Majidov (Super Heavyweight): The #1 ranked big guy and the reigning World Amateur Champion, it is hard to imagine Majidov not taking at least a silver at the London Games. To win gold at the 2011 Baku world championships, he out-pointed Felix Savon’s nephew Erislandy Savon, and then edged Britain’s Anthony Joshua. Super heavyweight is a talent-deep division this year, with Savon, Joshua and Italy’s Roberto Cammarelle (the gold medal-winner in Beijing) all sitting at the top of the heap, and all very close together in terms of ability. Even so, Majidov is the favorite for winning the super heavyweight gold, if only by a slim margin.
- Teymur Mammadov (Heavyweight): Mammadov is one of Azerbaijan’s more prominent amateur boxers, despite being only 19 years old. A national amateur champion and 2011 European Confederation Champion, he won silver at the Baku World Amateur Championships. Mammadov has soared to the top of his division in only a short space of time, and what he lacks in experience is more than made up for in talent. He is the #1 ranked amateur heavyweight in the world.
- Elvin Mamishzadeh (Flyweight): The #3 ranked amateur flyweight in the world, Mamishzadeh is no slouch, even if a silver from the European Confederation Championships is his only laurel. His problem is that there are so many other good flyweights out there. He has clashed with Ireland’s Paddy Barnes and Russia’s Misha Aloyan before, losing on both occasions. Mamishzadeh is a fierce competitor, however. With a little luck, he could easily grab a medal.
- Soltan Migitinov (Middleweight): Another veteran of the WSB (he came in second during the 2010-2011 season), Migitniov is a powerful, well-polished boxer, but strangely unranked as of yet by AIBA. This makes the Azeri middleweight a dark horse contender for a medal at the 2012 Games.
