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Teófilo Stevenson
is a former
Cuban
boxer who
made history in amateur
boxing,
but who refused to turn professional. Many people consider him
to be one of the greatest
Olympic
boxers in history, alongside
László Papp.
He was born in
Puerto Padre,
Cuba. His
father Teófilo was an immigrant from
Saint Vincent.
His mother Dolores was a native
Cuban,
but her parents were immigrants from
Saint Kitts.
That's why Stevenson speaks English very well. He represented
his country in the
1972
Olympic Games of
Munich.
He won the Gold medal, and then in the
1976
games, held in
Montreal,
Stevenson repeated the feat. By then, he had become a national
hero in Cuba, where he had become a household name. This was the
point where he was the closest to signing a professional
contract,
American
fight promoters offering him the amount of five million
dollars
to challenge world heavyweight champion
Muhammad Ali
in his first professional bout, which would have made him the
second boxer to go straight from the Olympics into a
professional debut with the world's Heavyweight crown on the
line, after
Pete Rademacher.
But he refused, asking "What is one million dollars compared to
the love of eight million Cubans?"[1]
Stevenson went to the
1980 Summer Olympics
in
Moscow
and became the second boxer ever, after Papp, to win three
Olympic boxing gold medals. At the
2000 Summer Olympics,
Félix Savón,
also from Cuba, became the third boxer to achieve this.
Stevenson might have won a fourth
gold medal at the
1984
Los Angeles
Olympic Games, but the
Soviet Union
boycotted the games in retaliation for the
United States
boycott of the 1980 Moscow competition. Cuba followed the
Soviet's lead, and Stevenson was deprived of the chance to earn
a fourth gold. For consolation, he beat the Olympic champion
Tyrell Biggs
in February
1984. He
retired from boxing shortly after the olympics. During his
career as a boxer, he has won 302 fights and lost only 22.
Stevenson was named coach of Cuba's
amateur boxing program, and Cuban President
Fidel Castro
presented him with a mansion in an exclusive residential area.
In
1999, he
ran into trouble at
Miami International Airport
when, before boarding a
United Airlines
chartered jet that would take the Cuban national boxing team
home, he allegedly headbutted a 41 year old United ticket
counter employee, causing him to break his teeth. He was
arrested, but soon after, he was released and returned home.
Stevenson defended himself, saying he was provoked by a torrent
of verbal abuse.
When Stevenson refused to turn
professional and fight Ali, the heavyweight scene was vibrant,
with fighters of the calibre of
Ken Norton,
Larry Holmes,
George Foreman
and
Joe Frazier
competing. Stevenson would certainly have stirred up the
professional boxing world, and fight fans continue to debate the
possible outcomes had he fought in the halcyon days of
heavyweight boxing. |
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