Aleksandr MIROSHNICHENKO

Alex Miroshnichenko took up boxing in 1979 and soon rose to be one of the top Soviet super-heavyweight boxers. At the Soviet Championships, Miroshnichenko won three Soviet super-heavyweight titles (1986, 1988-89) and two silvers (1985, 1987). Miroshnichenko won Olympic bronze in 1988, World Championships silver in 1989, losing to Cuban Roberto Balado in the final, and two European Championships bronzes in 1983 and 1989. Miroshnichenko also won silver at the 1986 Goodwill Games and bronze at the 1983 World Cup. In 1990, Miroshnichenko finished his amateur boxing career with a record of 211 wins out of 235 bouts and turned professional. As a professional, Miroshnichenko was quite successful. He won his first 21 fights, 15 of them with a KO, until in 1993 he lost to Oleg Maskayev by KO. After his first loss, Miroshnichenko retired from boxing. He then worked as a boxing coach in his native Kazakhstan. From 2000-02 he was head coach of the Kazakhstan national boxing team and from 2002 until his untimely death in May 2003, he worked with the Kostanay State University as the head of Physical Culture department. On the evening of 19 May 2003, after visiting friends and returning home, Miroshnichenko fell nine stories down to the ground of the stairwell at the house where he lived. His death was first investigated as a murder, but it was later classified as accidental.