The Russian boxing team suffered another major blow Saturday afternoon when two-time middleweight world champion Matvey Korobov fell a victim to Kazakhstan's Bakhtiyar Artayev, light middleweight winner in the 2004 Olympics.

Artayev is not an easy match for anyone. He grabbed a gold medal at the Athens Olympics and two bronze medals at the 2005 and 2007 world championships.

Both being strong and aggressive, Korobov and Artayev tied each other for the first three rounds, with the Russian taking a small lead of one point. However, at the last round, Korobov gave a somewhat disappointing performance by slacking off a little, both on attacks and defence.

Especially after he lost four points to the Kazakh, Korobov didn't seem eager to make a comeback, which was confusing. Or maybe it was because he couldn't find the opponent's weaknesses, which must have been well hidden by Artayev. To Russians' great disppointment, their world champion bowed out only after two fights.

The 11-member Russian team has only four boxers remaining in contention.

Artayev will fight less heralded Briton James Degale at the quarterfinal.

Source: Xinhua