Middleweight (≤75 kilograms), Men

Britain’s Chris Finnegan sustained a cut eye in the 1968 ABA Championship quarter-finals and could not fight in the semis. As that was the qualifying tournament for Great Britain’s boxers, he did not appear to be on the team, but his trainer was able to get him into a box-off for the middleweight spot, which Finnegan won easily. In the semi-finals in Mexico City, Finnegan received two standing eight counts again the United States’ Al Jones but survived to win by majority decision. This brought him to the final against the venerable Aleksey Kiselyov of the Soviet Union. Kiselyov had been winning major events in the Soviet Union since 1958 and had won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the light-heavyweight division. The final was extraordinarily close, all five judges scoring it 59-58, with three favoring Finnegan to give him the gold medal, the first boxing gold medal for Great Britain since 1924.

Finnegan turned professional, winning British, Commonwealth, and European professional titles and fighting through 1975 when a detached retina ended his pro career with a record of 29-7-1. Kiselyov retired after Mexico City, with a career amateur record of 225 wins in 250 fights, and became coach of the Soviet national team. In the quarter-finals in Mexico, Finnegan had defeated Mate Parlov of Yugoslavia, who would return in 1972 to win the light-heavyweight gold medal in Munich, and would also become world professional light-heavyweight champion in 1975.