The 25-year-old was aiming to follow in the footsteps of Bakhtiyar Artayev, Bakhyt Sarsekbayev and Serik Sapiyev, winners at 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

His counter attacking approach saw him establish a lead over his opponent Shakhram Giyasov of Uzbekistan, who struggled to land many decisive blows in the early stages of the bout.

With the judges giving him the first two rounds, Yeleussinov continued to grow in confidence and extended his lead in the final three minutes of the final.

Each of the judges scored the fight 29-28 in his favour to give the Kazakh boxer a unanimous points victory.

“I just think there are so many talented and gifted guys competing in this category in Kazakhstan right now,” said Yeleussinov, reflecting on Kazakhstan’s dominance in the division at the Olympics.

“Obviously we have also competed in different categories but it's just that right now we have so many great athletes in this particular category.

“I would like to thank all those who believed in me and also all those who did not believe in me because I wanted to prove that I was the best and I did that.

“I would also like to thank all the Uzbek fans, I would like to congratulate them because Uzbeks are brothers for us.

“It's a great achievement for Uzbekistan as they have a gold and my friend Shakhram has silver.”

Morocco’s reigning world champion Mohammed Rabii and France’s Souleymane Cissokho won the bronze medals after losing in the semi-final stage of the tournament.

Judging controversy continues to overshadow much of the action with Vladimir Nikitin, the Russian who controversially defeated Ireland's Michael Conlan in yesterday's Olympic quarter-final, confirmed to have pulled out of the semi-final.

He was scheduled to take on America's Shakur Stevenson in the semi-finals tomorrow but has pulled out "due to injuries sustained in his opening two wins."

An unspecified number of boxing judges were supposedly dropped from officiating at the Olympics by the International Boxing Association following the huge criticism of decisions made over the last two days.

Many of those involved in the controversial decisions have still officiated today, however.

Back in the ring, there was success for China’s Yin Junhua in the women’s 60 lightweight division as she unanimously was awarded victory against Finland’s Mira Potkonen, who had surprisingly beaten Ireland’s defending champion Katie Taylor in the last round.

Yin is due to take on Estelle Mossely for gold, with the Frenchwoman having earned a technical knock-out win over Russia's Anastasia Belyakova in her semi-final.