Amid freezing weather, the Philippines’ Harry Tañamor arrived in Beijing Saturday and will go up against an old nemesis – 2008 Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming of China – in the 48-kilogram class in the two-day “Champion of Champions” boxing tournament.

Tañamor, 32, will be hard-pressed to work up a sweat in below-zero temperature as he battles the 28-year-old Zou, the same fighter who beat him in the final of the 2007 World Boxing Championship in Chicago.

Zou would later give his country its first boxing gold medal in the Beijing Olympics the following year after his opponent in the light flyweight final, Mongolian Prjiin Serdamba, retired from a shoulder injury.

Tañamor, on the other hand, also made it the he quadrennial Games but lost to Ghana’s Manyo Plange in the Round of 32, ending the Philippines’ Olympic gold medal dream.

“The winner in this invitational tournament gets to fight for the gold medal,” said Ed Picson, executive director of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines, who flies to Beijing Monday with ABAP secretary-general Patrick Gregorio.

Tañamor, rated No. 7 in Asia, wasn’t in the original cast of participants in Beijing, Picson said, but was invited as a late replacement for an unidentified fighter who was hurt in training.

Accompanying Tañamor, who is fighting to stay in the national team, were coach Elmer Pamisa and referee-judge Tito Dacuma.

Beijing organizers are providing the airfare, board and lodging of a three-man group for the meet, which will bring in the top four Asian fighters in selected weight categories.