Russian Alexander Povetkin seized the title for the super heavyweight (over 91kg) category in the boxing tournament of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games without a fight in Athens on August 29 afternoon as his Egyptian opponent was forced to quit the final due to a hand injury.

This was the last gold medal the 11-category Olympic boxing tournament had to offer. In the previous 10 finals, the powerful Cubans swept away half of the gold medals on offer.

Povetkin's easy win put the Russians on the second place in the boxing gold medal tally with three golds. The other two Russian golds came from the featherweight (57kg) and middleweight (75kg) categories.

Povetkin mounted the boxing arena amidst loud cheers from his supporters in the Peristeri Olympic Boxing Hall of Athens, but only to leave in a few minutes as he was informed that his Egyptian rival Mohamed Aly had suffered an unexpected hand fracture and had to quit the match.

Aly, with his right wrist bandaged, appeared at the medal awarding ceremony and accepted his silver with a smiling face.

The Athens Olympics boxing tournament, which started on Aug.14, also ended with the ceremony after a total of 272 bouts.

With traditional powerhouses Cuba and Russia bagging 8 golds in all, each gaining one more boxing gold than four years ago at the Sydney Games, there were only three golds from the light welterweight (64kg), welterweight (69kg) and light heavyweight ( 81kg) categories to be shared by boxers from Thailand, Kazakhstan and the United States.

However, due to his superb performance of upsetting two of the strongest boxers in his category, two-time Olympic champion Russian Oleg Saitov and two-time world champion Cuban Lorenzo Aragon Armenteros, the young Kazakh boxer Bakhtiyar Artayev was picked as the "Best Boxer of the Olympic Games Athens 2004" by the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) shortly after he won the welterweight gold.