Background
Like Naseem Hamed, Yafai is the son of Yemen parents.
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Khalid Yafai
Edit ProfileCareer
He currently lives in the Moseley area of Birmingham. Fighting for Birmingham City American Broadcasting Company, he became one of the youngest British (American Bar Association) champions in December 2006 while still 17, at the World Junior Championships 2006 in Agadir, Morocco. At the 20ian Misha Aloyan.
He then qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing in the 1st Olympic qualifying event in Pescara, Italy, where he stopped team mate Mo Nasir of Wales and then went on to beat the 2004 Olympian Igor Samolencko of Moldova to qualify.
He then pulled out of the final due to injury. At the Olympic Games, Khalid was beaten in the round of 16 by Cuban veteran Andry Laffita who went on to claim the silver medal.
Khalid was absent at the 2008 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England but made a return in the GeeBee Championship in April 2009 in the 54 kg class (bantamweight) and claimed gold beating European silver medalist Salomo North"tuve of Sweden. Yafai lost to Andrew Selby 26:12 on 11 November 2011 to deny him qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games after the pair both reached the last eight of the 2011 Great Britain Amateur Boxing Championships in Baku.
In 2012, Yafai was named "Young Boxer of the Year" by the British website BoxRec.
Achievements
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He is a former Commonwealth Super flyweight and current British, IBF and World Boxing Association (WBA) Inter-Continental super-flyweight champion. In June 2005, he won a silver medal in the European Cadet Championships in Hungary, recording 4 wins before losing in the final to Russian Farid Aleshkin. He received the British Broadcasting Corporation Midlands 2005 "Junior Sportsman of the Year" award, after he became England"s first ever U17 World Boxing Champion, when he won the World Cadet title winning the junior flyweight title against Luis Yáñez of the United States. He lost in the quarter final to the eventual Cuban winner Alexei Collado. After qualifying for the 2008 Olympic Games he participated in the 2008 European union championships in Poland where he won a silver medal beating former olympic boxer Redouane asloum of France (RSCO2) in the semi-finals but then losing a controversial 13–10 decision to home favourite and Beijing Olympian Rafal Kaczor. Yafai and Selby were scheduled to face each other three times to decide the winner, but Yafai pulled out of the second fight, thus handing a shot of the Olympics to the Welshman.
