Rustam Saidov

Rustam Tukhtasinovich Saidov was born on 6 February 1978 and boxed as a super heavyweight (+91 kg); he is 188 cm tall. He played handball as a child, took up boxing at 14 and moved to Samarkand, where his coaches were Nikolai Anfimov and Mikhail Romanchuk. In 2000 he graduated from the Uzbek State Institute of Physical Culture as a trainer-teacher.

He won silver at the 1997 Uzbek championships and was named best boxer of the 1999 Central Asian Games in Bishkek. In 1999 he won the Asian Championships in Tashkent. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics he lost his semi-final and took bronze (beating Canada's Art Binkowski in the quarter-final). He won gold at the Asian Games in Busan (2002) and Doha (2006).

He took bronze at the 2003 World Championships in Bangkok (losing the semi-final to Alexander Povetkin). He won the Asian Championships in 2002, 2004 and 2007 and took silver in 2005; at the 2004 Athens Olympics he lost his first bout 13–18 to Cuba's Michel López Núñez. He also boxed in the World Series of Boxing for Pohang Poseidons of South Korea.

He received the title «Pride of Uzbekistan» in 2001 and the title Honoured Sportsman of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2006.