By Luke Furman

Alexey Kuziemski (23-5, 7 KOs), who was a very successful amateur, a Polish Olympian and a two-time world title challenger, has decided to announce his retirement from boxing at age 35.

Kuziemski won the bronze medal at light heavyweight at the 2003 World Amateur Boxing Championships, and another bronze at the 2004 European Amateur Boxing Championships. He participated in the 2004 Summer Olympics. There he was beaten in the first round of the light heavyweight (81 kg) division by Kazakhstan's Beibut Shumenov, who is currently WBA light heavyweight champion.

In his biggest pro fights, he was stopped by Juergen Braehmer in eleven rounds in 2009, stopped by Nathan Cleverly in four in 2011, and lost a ten round decision to Jean Pascal in December 2012.

He was offered a spot on the big February card in Gdansk, where Andrew Golota will trade punches with Przemyslaw Saleta. There, his opponent would have been countryman Pawel Glazewski (19-1, 5 KOs), but Aleksy made a decision to hang up his gloves for good.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org