Middleweight (≤75 kilograms), Men

The traditional superpowers of boxing, Cuba, Russia and the USA, all had strong contenders for the Olympic title in Athens but the clear favourite was the man who had spearheaded Kazakhstan’s emergence as one of the powerhouses of the sport – world champion Gennady Golovkin. Golovkin had a remarkable record in the amateur ranks and at the start of the Athens games had only lost 3 of his 300+ fights. After an untroubled run to the semi-finals he saw off the challenge of the fancied American Andre Dirrell to set up a meeting with Sydney Olympic finalist Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov of Russia for the gold medal. Gaydarebekov had recently won the European Championships at the middleweight limit but it was still a surprise when he recovered from a four-point deficit at the end of the 1st round to dominate the last half of the fight and become the 1st Russian to win gold in the this division since [Vyacheslav Lemeshev] won for the Soviet Union in 1972. This was the high point of Gaydarebekov’s career and he drifted into retirement shortly after the Games ended. Golovkin suffered a shock defeat at the 2005 World Championships and afterwards decided to embark on a career as a professional. By 2013 he was established as one of the stars of the sport and has held the WBA world title since 2010.