ULAN BATOR, July 16 (Xinhua) -- A Mongolian baritone won first prize at the Chigiana International Competition 2018 for opera singers, local media reported Monday.

The competition, hosted by the Chigiana Academy of Italy, was held simultaneously in several countries for six months, with the attendance of 1,870 singers worldwide.

Winner Chuluunbaatar Badral is an artist from the Military Song and Dance Academic Ensemble of Mongolia and soloist of the Magnitogorsk Theater of Opera and Ballet of Russia. He walks away with a 12,000-euro (14,000 U.S. dollars) cash prize.

He has participated in a number of competitions, most recently in September 2017 at the International Virgilijus Noreika Competition for Singers in Lithuania.

Badral was also a semi-finalist at this year's International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. In 2016, he won the International Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Competition.