Julio César la Cruz leads Cuba's boxer roster for the 2025 World Boxing Championship

Cuba wants to reign again in the world of boxing Olympic sport and for that reason has lined up great fighters for the 2025 World Boxing Championship, which will take place in Liverpool (England) from September 4 to 14.

And if one talks about Cuban boxing in the context of the Olympic Games, the great name that shines currently is that of Julio César la Cruz.

Olympic champion in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, the boxer from Camagüey was surprisingly eliminated in the first fight of Paris 2024 and could not complete his mission of winning three Olympic golds.

But la Cruz is a fighter of challenges, so he reconsidered his plan to step away from the Olympic context and will now compete in the World Boxing Championship, which is the first major international Olympic boxing competition heading towards Los Angeles 2028.

However, Julio César la Cruz, the captain of Cuba's Tamers, as Cuba's boxing team is known, has raised the stakes even further: he will fight in the highest weight category (+90 kg), for which he has not yet had much preparation nor does he know his rivals, among which stand out the two-time Olympic champion Bakhodir Jalolov (Uzbekistan) or the runner-up in Paris 2024, Ayoub Ghadfa (Spain). This acclimation to the new weight category will be key for a Julio César la Cruz who is still in top shape.

La Cruz is not the only Olympic champion who will be in the Liverpool ring: the only Cuban boxer to achieve a gold medal in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Fuente: Olympics.com