Amir Khan (born Amir Iqbal
Khan on 8 December 1986), is an English professional boxer of Pakistani
descent who is currently the unified IBF and WBA World Light Welterweight
Champion.
Currently, Khan is rated as the best boxer in
the Light Welterweight division, above Timothy Bradley; who holds the other two
major titles in the division. Khan is also rated #9 and #10 pound-for-pound
best boxer in the world by Boxrec and Sports Illustrated
respectively.
He was previously in the Lightweight
division, where he held the Commonwealth, WBO Inter-Continental and WBA
International titles.
Although of relatively young age, Khan has
already amassed many achievements along the way. He is the youngest British Olympic
boxing medalist when he captured silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics at the age
of 17. He is also one of the youngest British world champions ever, winning the
WBA world title, aged only 22.
Khan began to box
competitively at the age of 11, with early honours including three English
school titles, three junior ABA titles, and gold at the 2003 Junior Olympics.
In early 2004 he won a gold medal at the European Student Championships in Lithuania,
and in South Korea several months later he won world junior lightweight title
after fighting five times in seven days. One of his notable early amateur
fights was against Victor Ortz, whom he defeated in a second round stoppage.
Khan qualified for
the 2004 Summer Olympics by finishing in first place at the 1st AIBA European
2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He was Britain's sole
representative in boxing at the Athens Games, winning a silver medal at the age
of 17 in the lightweight boxing category. He was Britain's youngest Olympic
boxer since Colin Jones in 1976. He lost in the final to Mario Kindelan, the
Cuban who had also beaten him several months earlier in the pre-Olympic
match-ups in Greece. In 2005 he avenged the two losses by beating the
34-year-old Kindelan in his last amateur fight.
Charitable
and community work
- After
the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Khan
assisted in helping raise 1 million for victims of the disaster. After the
2005 Kashmir earthquake, Khan went
to Pakistan and handed out food parcels to children in a camp.
- In
July 2006 Khan became involved in the No Messin' campaign, which promotes
child safety around British railways.
- In
2008, he raised more than 6,000 for a firefighter who was badly burned
while trying to save a family from an arson
attack in Bolton. Khan along with a few other famous faces took part in a
charity football match at Valley Parade in Bradford, the proceeds of the
match went to the family of the murdered police officer Sharon
Beshenivsky.
- He
has spent 1 million of his own money on opening the Gloves Community
Centre and boxing gym in Bolton to get youths off the streets.
- He
has shown support for the White Ribbon Campaign, which encourages men to
play a role in ending violence against women.
Media
- Khan
was involved in a TV programme for Channel 4,
Amir Khan's Angry Young Men, which consisted of three 50-minute
episodes. The programme centred around troubled angry men and aimed to use
the disciplines of boxing, coupled with faith and family values, to help
re-focus their lives and steer them away from trouble in the future. It
was screened in August/September 2007.
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