Kevin Hogarth

At the 1956 Melbourne Games Kevin Hogarth won Australia’s first Olympic boxing medal in almost half-a-century when he won bronze in the welterweight. The last Australian to win a medal in boxing at the Olympics was Snowy Baker who won silver as a middleweight at the 1908 London Games.

Hogarth lost his semi-final bout to Fred Tiedt of Ireland and was seemingly unaware that the two losing semi-finalists would each receive a bronze medal. At the medal ceremony Hogarth was absent from the presentation much to the disappointment of the home crowd. Despite a search of the venue he was not to be found as he had gone to a harness race meeting. Hogarth later said that he was never told about winning a medal or that he was required to be present for the medal ceremony.

Hogarth’s last fight came two years after his Olympic success when he was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the light-middleweight class at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.