Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners
The memorable bouts of Tokyo Olympic boxing events have broached the idea of getting to know some of the most outstanding fighters in the history of Olympic games with our series of Olympics boxing articles, and this time with the Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners.
Since the sport of boxing was added to Summer Olympics in 1904, except for the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, it is still considered to be an amazing arena for the new fighters to gain the worldwide recognition they need to make their career as illustrious as possible.
Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners competed in a hard-fought battle of 13 events with the participation of 286 constants at the venue of the ExCeL Exhibition Centre of London from 28 July to 12 August. So 13 number Olympic Gold Medal Boxing Champions must have done a herculean task to reach there.
Before delving more into the list of Olympic medalists in boxing, it is pertinent to note that the male athletes went through the qualification events of the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan where 10 sportsmen among each category and six sportsmen of the heavyweight and super heavyweight categories became qualified for the
Boxing at the Summer Olympics
.
Likewise, sportswomen passed through the 2012 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Qinhuangdao, China and Continental Olympic qualifying events during 2012 so as to take part in three events of the Boxing at the Summer Olympics for the first time.
While the tournament was not devoid of controversial referring cases, the bouts were categorized according to weight class, as the lightest weight was scheduled first and then they went on in order after the completion of each fight.
In the event of Boxing at the Summer Olympics, male athletes contended in the following ten events:
Light flyweight (49kg)
Flyweight (52kg)
Bantamweight (56kg)
Lightweight (60kg)
Light welterweight (64kg)
Welterweight (69kg)
Middleweight (75kg)
Light heavyweight (81kg)
Heavyweight (91kg)
Super heavyweight (+91kg)
2012
Summer Olympics
was the first edition that withstands women participation in the sport boxing as they made appearances in three following boxing events. While the first women's gold medal was awarded to Nicola Adams in the flyweight category.
Flyweight (51kg)
Lightweight (60kg)
Middleweight (75kg
)
Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners
Here you would go through the Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners in all aforementioned weight categories of events. In case you are interested in the sport,
The Best Boxers Who Were Olympic Medalists Toomay find you well.
Nicola Adams
Game category: Flyweight
Country: Great Britain
As a British retired professional boxer who fought in the rings from 2017 to 2019, she was honoured to become the first female fighter to represent her national side and just after two years she even became an English amateur champion for the first time.
Winning medals at the European and World Championships in 2007 and 2008 were not enough for her to utterly cement her place as a boxer on the rise, until the arrival 2012 Olympics.
With the debut appearance of women at the 2012 London Olympics, she managed to secure her position on the Great Britain squad of women in early 2010 by getting silver at the World Championships, so as to eventually etch her name as the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal.
That is to say, she beat Bulgaria’s Stokya Petrova and India’s Mary Kom 11-6 in the semi-finals to go through the final at Excel.
Amid 16,000 home fans, she clinched gold against China’s Ren Cancan who was the world No.1 and her nemesis in the 2010 and 2012 World Championship final to the end of becoming Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners.
Then she defended her flyweight title at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games but announced her retirement on 6 November 2019 for being suffered from a torn pupil that made her susceptible to lose her vision permanently.
Katie Taylor
Game Category: Lightweight
Country: Ireland
As an Irish professional boxer and former footballer, she is honoured to become a two-weight world champion and is currently the undisputed lightweight champion.
After she defeated Delfine Persoon in 2019, she managed to become one of only eight boxers in history both among women and men to be holder of all four major world titles in boxing—WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO—at the same time.
In her journey in amateur boxing career, amazingly she has won five successive gold medals at the Women's World Championships, 6 gold medals at the European Championships, and 5 gold medals at the European Union Championships.
While she was the flag bearer of Ireland at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, she eventually ended up becoming one of the
Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners
in the lightweight division.
Her winning gold medal was a huge honour for her national side since the last Irish boxer who won a gold medal was Michael Carruth in the men's welterweight boxing in Barcelona in 1992.
To such an extent that the London 2012 officials expressed that at Taylor's first fight in the Olympic arena, the roar of the crowd was louder than a jumbo jet taking off.
Although she was behind following two rounds, she managed to dominate the remainder of the fight to grab the Olympic title.
Therefore, she defeated Russia's Sofya Ochigava 10-8 in the women's lightweight boxing final so as to be included on the list of Olympic medalists in boxing.
Claressa Shields
Game category: Middleweight
Country: USA
As an American professional boxer and mixed martial artist, she is currently the record holder of having a two and three-weight world championship in the fewest professional fights.
She is ranked the world's best active female light middleweight by The Ring and BoxRec as of November 2020. Quite incredibly she etched her name in history as the only boxer who holds all four major world titles in boxing—WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO simountanousely in two weight classes.
While she was just a 17-year-old teenager and had not even graduated from high school; she became the first U.S. woman to be awarded a boxing gold medal at the 2012 London Games.
Precisely as saying, her power and elusiveness in the bout against Russia's 33-year-old Nadezda Torlopova who had twice of her age and half of her speed, made her a true legend as she won the fight 19-12 very easily.
Afterwards, as one of the Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners, she managed to defend her title four years later at the 2016 Rio Olympic games. Therefore she became the first American boxer—female or male—to be awarded consecutive Olympic gold medals.
Zou Shiming
Game Category: Light flyweight
Country: China
As a Chinese retired professional boxer, he contested from 2013 to 2017 and was the holder of the WBO flyweight title from 2016 to 2017.
In his amateur career, he is considered to be China's most successful boxer of all time. In the light-flyweight division, he managed to win three World Amateur Boxing Championships gold medals in 2005, 2007 and 2011.
He received China's first Olympic boxing medal, a bronze, in 2004 and its first gold among home fans at the 2008 Beijing Games, and managed to add a second Olympic triumph to a career haul that was illustrious enough with three world amateur championships.
That is to say, he defeated Thailand's Kaeo Pongprayoon 13-10 in a hard-fought battle of two of the oldest boxers at the London arena to prove his utter dominance in the light-flyweight division and cement his spot in the
list of Olympic medalists in boxing
. Yet some critics announced his victory as rather controversial.
Robeisy Ramírez
Game Category: Flyweight
Country: Cuba
As a Cuban professional fighter, he competed in the Summer Olympics boxing event and as an amateur, he managed to receive a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in the flyweight division so as to become one of the
Olympic Gold Medal Boxing Champions
.
Preceding his feat at London Olympics, he managed to qualify for the Olympics at the 2011 AIBA World Championships in Azerbaijan where he reached the third round and lost to Russia’s Mikhail Aloyan.
Although 2012 had not a very auspicious start for him as he had lost all of his international competitions except for Córdova Cardín in Havana, he managed to be all prepared for London Olympics.
Hence, even though he was not assumed to be one of the favourites to medal due to his tender age of 18 years old and his little fame, he succeeded to win all five matches in the light of the quality of his preparation and his aggressive style.
Afterwards, as one of the Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners, he went on to win gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the bantamweight event as well. In case you are curious to know who else won the gold medal at Rio Olympics, you can check out
Olympics boxing 2016 gold medal winners.
Luke Campbell
Game Category: Bantamweight
Country: Great Britain
As a British retired professional boxer, he competed in a career that took long from 2013 to 2021. He challenged twice for lightweight world titles of the WBA and The Ring titles in 2017. He also won the WBA, WBO, The Ring and vacant WBC titles in 2019.
As an amateur fighter, in the bantamweight division, he managed to win gold at the 2008 European Championships, silver at the 2011 World Championships, and gold at the 2012 Olympics so as to be among one of the Olympic Gold Medal Boxing Champions.
Just very recently he has become retired at age of 33 years old, having 20 professional wins and four losses as he fell short of becoming a world champion in the fights with Jorge Linares and Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Vasyl Lomachenko
Game Category: Lightweight
Country: Ukraine
As a Ukrainian professional boxer, he is a former world champion in three weight classes. Currently, he is ranked as the world's second-best active lightweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, The Ring magazine, ESPN, and third by BoxRec.
As one of the most successful amateur fighters of all time, he holds a record of 396 wins and 1 loss, with that loss revenged twice.
In the featherweight and lightweight divisions, he managed to win a silver medal at the 2007 World Championships, gold at the 2008 European Championships, successive gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and consecutive gold at the 2009 and 2011 World Championships.
While he is immensely popular for his outstanding hand pace, timing, precision, creativity, athleticism, defence and footwork, he won gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics featherweight division.
But in 2012 London, he competed in the lightweight division as he defended his title and won the bout easily against South Korea's Soonchul Han 19-9 so as to be among one of the Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners.
Roniel Iglesias
Game Category: Light welterweight
Country: Cuba
As a Cuban amateur boxer, he gained worldwide recognition as he won the junior world title at lightweight in 2006, a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and a gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
He went on to make his already impressive Olympic journey even more illustrious as he received another gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
At the 2012 London Olympic Games, he beat Colombian Cesar Villarraga Aldana 20-9, Brazilian Everton Dos Santos Lopes 18-15, Uktamjon Rahmonov of Uzbekistan 21-15, Italian Vincenzo Mangiacapre 15-8 and finally Denys Berinchyk from Ukraine by a score of 22-15 with rather ease.
Afterwards, he moved up to welterweight and competed in this division at the 2016 Summer Olympics, but failed to grab any medal there.
However, he gathered his momentum to win a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as he beat Pat McCormack from Great Britain by a score of 5-0.
Serik Sapiyev
Game Category: Welterweight
Country: Kazakhstan
He is an amateur boxer from Kazakhstan that anchored the world titles of the light welterweight (-64 kg) division in 2005 and 2007 to his name.
Amazingly at the same welterweight division, not only he won a gold medal at the London Olympic Games in 2012, but also he won the Val Barker Trophy for best boxer at the tournament.
That is to say, he beat Andrey Zamkovoy in the semis and defeated Fred Evans by a score of 17-9 in the final in spite of the fact that Evans was benefitted from home-crowd support.
Moreover, he took part in Beijing Olympics Games in the light welterweight division before he moved up to utterly prepare himself for the London tournament.
As one of the
Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners
, in fact with his brilliant feat at London 2012, he earned redemption for his Olympic performance four years ago in Beijing, when as a two-time world champion he lost in the first round.
Ryōta Murata
Game Category: Middleweight
Country: Japan
He is a Japanese professional boxer who is the holder of the WBA (Super) middleweight title since January 2021 and formerly was the holder of the WBA (Regular) title twice between 2017 and January 2021.
As an amateur fighter, he managed to win a silver medal at the 2011 World Championships, and then after that, he won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. As of July 2021, he earned the spot number five of the world's best active middleweight in The Ring ranking.
At The 2012 London Olympics, he beat Algeria's Abdelmalek Rahou 21–12 in the round of 16, Turkey's Adem Kılıççı 17–13 in the quarter-finals, Uzbekistan's Abbos Atoev 13–12 in the semi-finals and Brazilian Esquiva Falcão in the final with a score of 14–13 in order to take the gold medal in the tournament.
With this triumph, he became the hundredth gold medalist of Japan in their Olympic history and is considered to be Japan's first boxing gold medallist since Takao Sakurai who won in the bantamweight class in 1964. Not to mention that he is the first-ever boxing medal in a weight class other than bantamweight or flyweight.
Egor Mekhontsev
Game Category: Light heavyweight
Country: Russia
As a Russian professional boxer, at the 2009 World Amateur Boxing Championships in the heavyweight division, he beat Clemente Russo and defeated fellow southpaws Oleksandr Usyk in the semifinal and Osmay Acosta in the final.
Then he successfully defended his title at the 2010 European Amateur Boxing Championships against Denis Poyatsika and Tervel Pulev as well.
But one of his biggest accomplishments is his winning gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 2012 London Olympics.
To make this feat, as a 28-year-old fighter he had to defeat Damien Hooper, Elshod Rasulov, Yamaguchi Falcao and Adilbek Niyazymbetov while the two latter one respectively took place in the semifinals and final.
Oleksandr Usyk
Game Category: Heavyweight
Country: Ukraine
He is a Ukrainian professional boxer who earned the fourth position in the ranking of the world's best active boxer, pound for pound, by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB) and The Ring, as of June 2021.
As he reigned the undisputed cruiserweight champion from 2018 until 2019, he was honoured to become the fourth male boxer in history to hold the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO titles at the same time, after Jermain Taylor, Bernard Hopkins and Terence Crawford.
It is notable to indicate that he is immensely popular for the speed of his successes, winning his first world title just in his tenth bout, and becoming the undisputed champion of his weight class only in his fifteenth bout.
At the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships, he beat Artur Beterbiev and Teymur Mammadov so as to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in the heavyweight division.
As a result, he ended up beating Artur Beterbiev, Tervel Pulev and Italy's Clemente Russo as he outpointed the latter one by 6–3 in the final of the London Olympics for the sake of being included on the list of the
Olympics boxing 2012 gold medal winners.
Anthony Joshua
Game Category: Super heavyweight
Country: Great Britain
As a British professional boxer, he is a two-time unified world heavyweight champion, being the holder of the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles since December 2019, and formerly between 2016 and June 2019.
Joshua is assumed to be the second British boxer, after just James DeGale, to collect both a gold medal at the Olympics and a world title by a major professional sanctioning body, along with being the first British heavyweight to do so.
Not to mention that he is placed as the world's second-best active heavyweight by The Ring, Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and BoxRec as of June 2021.
When he was an amateur fighter, he represented his national side at the 2011 World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan in the super-heavyweight division, so as to mark his immediate arrival on the world scene.
That is to say by beating world and Olympic champion Roberto Cammarelle and being defeated by Magomedrasul Majidov, he finished to finally win a silver medal and secure his place at the 2012 Olympic Games as a rather newcomer on the world boxing stage.
At the 2012 London Olympics, he beat Cuban Erislandy Savón 17-16, Chinese Zhang Zhilei 15:11, Ivan Dychko of Kazakhstan 13-11 and finally levelled with Italian Roberto Cammarelle +18-18 and finished as the winner via count-back.
Yet the decision to announce him as the Olympic champion was reproached to be a "home decision" by some boxing experts.
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