Eric Griffin

Eric Griffin lost his chance to compete at the 1988 Olympic Games when he tested positive for marijuana at the US Olympic trials. He rebounded from this setback to became world champion at light-flyweight in both 1989 and 1991 and Goodwill Games gold medallist in 1990. The Louisiana born Griffin arrived at Barcelona as the outstanding favourite for the gold medal and comfortably won his first round bout. In his second fight he faced Spain’s Rafael Lozano and fell victim to one of the most controversial decisions of the Barcelona Games, Although each of the five judges ruled that Griffin had landed more scoring punches than his opponent the scoring system required three of the judges to push the scoring button within a second of each other for the score to count. Whilst the judges agreed on Lozano’s punches Griffin was not so lucky and lost a decision by six points to five.

He turned professional late in 1992. his only loss in his first fifteen fights came by injury but on stepping up to world level he suffered a number of defeats which included an attempt on the world light-flyweight title that ended in a crushing defeat. He retired from the ring in 1997.