It might as well be called the 'Croatian Class'

Croatian youth boxers have been dominating the super heavyweight class as of late and are set to take their recent success into the WSB tournament in November with seven boxers signed up so far.

AIBA reports: 3 June 2010

Dino Mansour claimed the gold medal at the 2009 European Youth Championships in Szczecin, while his younger teammate Filip Hrgovic, who is not participating in the WSB, became the Youth World Champion in Baku, Azerbaijan on May 3rd.

The youngest member of the squad, Filip Hrgovic was born in 1992 when Croatia separated from Yugoslavia and became a new independent European nation. The young Hrgovic has been boxing in BK Leonardo since 2002. His first success was at the 2008 Croatian Junior Championships where he claimed the gold medal in the 86kg weight class. One year later at the Croatian Youth National Championships, Hrgovic added a silver medal to his impressive collection after losing to European Youth Champion Dino Mansour by accepted scores.

Hrgovic took a silver medal at the Franko Blagonic Youth Tournament, while he claimed a gold medal in the Croatian Youth National Championships this year.

Hrgovic traveled to the AIBA Youth World Championships in Baku where he defeated his first opponent, Jozsef Zsigmond of Hungary, 7:1. In the medal round Hrgovic had to face local favorite Fargan Omarov of Azerbaijan in the quarterfinal, but he won the contest easily, 15:4 and qualified for the Youth Olympic Games.

Hrgovic fought a close bout against Joseph Parker of New Zealand in the semifinal where the scores remained within a point for most of the contest, but Hrgovic managed to push ahead to an 8:6 victory in the final round.

Coached by Leonard Pijetraj and Dalibor Cibaric, Hrgovic did his coaches and country proud, winning the first Croatian gold medal in Youth World Championships' history. Hrgovic's historic win was the first shining moment for Croatia since the legendary Mate Parlov struck gold in 1974.

photo acknowledgment the AIBA