Although Cassius Clay, who would change his name to Muhammad Ali, won his gold medal at light-heavyweight in 1960, he was only 18 at the time and already so strappingly athletic that no one doubted in which division he would establish his world dominance as a professional.
At the next two Olympics, in Tokyo in 1964 and Mexico in 1968, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, two men who would engage Ali in some of pro boxing’s most memorable heavyweight contests, won the top division. Then came Cuba’s magnificent Teofilo Stevenson who, through the explosive force of his right hand, extended his reign over three Olympics.
In his gold-medal fight in Rome, Clay faced Poland’s Zbigniew ‘Ziggy’ Pietrzykowski, who was the older fighter by nearly eight years. This greater experience was a factor only in the first round. Clay had worked the Pole out by the second when a series of close-range body shots softened up his opponent. He was utterly dominant in the final round, even demonstrating an early version of the Ali shuffle.
Foreman, who won his gold medal after only 18 amateur bouts, had been schooled to use his raw power effectively. In the 1968 Olympic final he rammed his left lead into the face of Jonas Cepulis before finishing off the Soviet fighter in the second round with a mix of brutal punches, some more scrapbook than textbook.
Teofilo Stevenson specialised in the one-punch massacre.
Peter Hussing, a hugely experienced West German, summed it up after being poleaxed by Stevenson in a semi-final in Munich in 1972. ‘You just don’t see the right hand,’ he said. ‘All of a sudden it is there – on your chin.’ He said he had never been hit so hard in 212 bouts.
It was not until the semi-finals of Stevenson’s third Olympics that an opponent managed to go the distance with him. Istvan Levai achieved this by engaging reverse gear thoughout the fight. Stevenson then outpointed Piotr Zaev of the Soviet Union in the final to become the first boxer to win three Olympic titles in the same division.
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