2016 RIO OLYMPICS: HISTORY OF BOXING IN THE SUMMER GAMES PART IV
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 21 Jul 2016
In the terrorist-attacked 1972 Munich Olympics, Cuban welterweight Emilio Correa, the 19-year-old Pan American champion, defeated European titlist Hungarian Janos Kajdi, 5-0 in a close but unanimous decision. His son, Emilio Correa Jr., won silver medal at the Beijing Games 36 years later. The Munich Games also marked the debut of Cuban Teofilo Stevenson and where he won the first of his three gold medals. He received his gold medal after Romanian Ion Alexe failed to appear in the final match due to injury.
In the 1976 Montreal Games "Sugar" Ray Leonard, a 20-year-old light welterweight boxer from Maryland, USA gained a 5-0 decision against Cuban Andres Aldama to win the gold medal. Leonard, fighting with photos of his girlfriend and their 2-year-old son fixed to his socks as inspiration, made a poignant declaration after the victory: "This is my last fight. My journey has ended. My dream is fulfilled." Just a few months later, Leonard changed his mind, turned professional and became welterweight world champion in 1979. Leonard was awarded "Fighter of the Decade" for the 1980s, when he won titles in the welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.
In Moscow in 1980, Cuba's Teofilo Stevenson became just the second boxer, after Hungary's Laszlo Papp, to win three Olympic gold medals. Stevenson, the heavyweight champion in Munich and Montreal, failed for the first time to knock out an opponent when Hungary's Istvan Levai escaped the powerful Cuban's punches in their semifinal bout. Stevenson, who won all nine of his previous Olympic fights by knockout, also went the distance in the final, defeating Soviet Pyotr Zayev by a 4-1 decision. Stevenson might have won a fourth gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics, but the Soviet Union boycotted the games, which were hosted by Los Angeles, to avenge the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. Cuba followed the Soviet move, and Stevenson was not able to compete. As a consolation, he beat future Olympic champion Tyrell Biggs in a match in February 1984.
With the powerhouse Soviets and Cubans boycotting the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, U.S. boxers won 52 of 55 bouts and record nine gold medals. One favorite American who didn't triumph was light heavyweight Evander Holyfield, who was disqualified in his semifinal bout. The DQ, for hitting his opponent after being told to stop, was protested vehemently but was ignored. The loss downgraded Holyfield to the bronze medal, though many believed that he belonged to the top of the podium. As a gesture of goodwill, gold medalist Anton Josipovic of Yugoslavia pulled Holyfield to the top of the podium during the medal ceremony. The American gold medalists were Meldrick Taylor, Tyrell Biggs, Mark Breland, Pernell Whitaker, Paul Gonzales, Jerry Page, Frank Tate, Henry Tillman and Steve McCrory.
Pandemonium broke out in Seoul in 1988 when the native South Korean bantamweight boxer Byun Jong-Il lost a dubious preliminary bout to Aleksandar Khristov of Bulgaria. The coach, assistant and some diehard fans, climbed the ring and battered referee Keith Walker of New Zealand, who had deducted Byun two points for head butting. When the turmoil abated, Byun acted on a sit-down protest for 67 minutes, breaking the unofficial Olympic record set by another South Korean Choh Dong-Kih in 1964. That time, Choh stayed in the ring for 51 minutes after being disqualified from a match in the Tokyo Games. Because of Byun's strike, South Korean Olympic Committee President Kim Chong-Ha resigned and accepted full responsibility for the controversy. Byun turned professional and won the WBC bantamweight title.
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