Light-Welterweight (≤63.5 kilograms), Men

The 1974 World Champion was Uganda’s Ayub Kalule but he turned professional early in 1976, and the African boycott would have prevented him from fighting. The 1972 gold medalist had been Sugar Ray Seales, and a Sugar Ray was back for the United States, but this time in the form of Sugar Ray Leonard, a young man from suburban Washington, who was just out of high school. With hands as quick as a snake’s bite, Leonard advanced to the final to face Cuba’s Andrés Aldama, who was also relatively inexperienced. The final was not close as Leonard won by unanimous decision. Aldama would return to the Olympics in 1980, after winning Pan American gold in 1979, and win a gold medal, defeating John Mugabi in the welterweight final, a future professional champion.

Sugar Ray Leonard moved on to the professional ranks, although he had stated all during the Olympics that he would not do so until he had gone to college. He would have one of the great, and longest, professional careers of any Olympic boxer. He fought through 1991, although he returned for one bout in 1997. He won his first world title in 1979, the NABF welterweight crown, and he would eventually win world titles in five different weight classes. One of those came in 1981 when he defeated Ayub Kalule, the man who was not there at Montréal, for the WBA and The Ring light-middleweight crowns. Leonard became wealthy, winning over $100 million in purses, and was named the Boxer of the Decade for the 1980s. His career professional record was 36 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw.