OLYMPIC HISTORY

Lazlo Papp

Boxing's safe place in the ancient Games failed to impress the fathers of the modern era, and pugilists were persona non grata in Athens in 1896 and in Paris in 1900, their sport deemed too dangerous to join the party. The Americans reintroduced boxing to the Olympic arena in 1904 as a demonstration sport and medals were first won in 1908 in London. Swedish law, during the Stockholm Games of 1912, and the First World War intervened and it was not until 1920 that boxing would find a permanent home at the Games.

From then, Olympic boxing has been a birthing pool for some of the great names in the professional sport. Cassius Clay, later to drop that "slave" name, as he would have it, and become Muhammad Ali, is the most famous of them all. Other greats include Teofilo Stevenson Lorenzo, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Jeff Fenech, Sugar Ray Leonard and Evander Holyfield. Stevenson Lorenzo, a Cuban born in Jamaica, is unique on that list of names; winner of three super-heavyweight gold medals, in 1972, 1976 and 1980, he never fought for money and won the world amateur championship in 1986, long after hanging up his Olympic gloves, at the age of 34.

The 1990s were also dominated by Cuban boxers. Felix Savon, a heavyweight, is aiming for his third Olympic victory in a row in Sydney. Stevenson and Laszlo Papp, of Hungary, are the only boxing champions to win at three successive Games. However, two Cubans could match them in Sydney. Felix Savon is one, while the other, Ariel Hernandez, a middleweight, is not yet a certain entry. Cuban boxers have won 42 world championship titles but the United States remains top of the Olympic gold medal league, with 46 champions.