Olympic silver medalist Carlo Paalam will fight Kazakhstan’s Makhmud Sabyrkhan in the men’s 55-kilogram semifinals of the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games, with a place in the gold-medal bout at stake.
Paalam advanced to the medal round after edging China’s Zhang Jiamao, 3-2, in a closely contested quarterfinal. The victory guaranteed the Filipino boxer at least a bronze medal and kept alive his bid for an Asian Games gold.
The 28-year-old Paalam is the only remaining Filipino boxer in the competition after the exits of the other members of the six-man Philippine boxing team. He is seeking his first Asian Games gold after winning bronze in Jakarta in 2018 and falling in the quarterfinals at the 2022 Hangzhou Games.
Standing in his way is Sabyrkhan, a 25-year-old two-time world championship medalist who won the 2023 world title and the 2025 World Boxing championship. The Kazakh also defeated South Korea’s Jaeyong Shin in the quarterfinals to reach the last four.
Paalam and Sabyrkhan have met before. The Filipino defeated the Kazakh by a 4-1 split decision in the 57-kilogram final of the 2022 Asian Boxing Confederation Asian Elite Championships in Amman, Jordan.
Sabyrkhan, however, has since moved down to the 55-kilogram division and established himself as one of the leading boxers in the category. He was named World Boxing’s Best Boxer of 2025 after winning the world championship that year.
The semifinal is scheduled for Wednesday at Nishio Gymnasium in Japan. A victory would send Paalam into the Asian Games final, where he would face the winner of the other semifinal between Japan’s Rui Yamaguchi and Mongolia’s Bilguunsaikhan Kharkhuu.
For Paalam, the bout represents another opportunity to add an Asian Games gold medal to an international résumé that already includes an Olympic silver and an Asian championship title.
