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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Val Barker Trophy

The Val Barker Trophy is presented every four years to the most "outstanding boxer" at the Olympic Games. In theory, the award goes to the top "pound for pound" boxer in the Olympics. The winner is selected by a committee of International Boxing Association (amateur) (AIBA) officials. The trophy is named after British boxer Val Barker who won the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABA) heavyweight title in 1891, before becoming the secretary of the AIBA between 1926 and 1929.

The inaugural recipient of the Val Barker Trophy was American flyweight Louis Laurie who won bronze at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. He is one of just three boxers who did not win gold at the same Olympics in which they were presented with the trophy, the others being Kenyan featherweight Philip Waruinge (bronze at the 1968 Games) and American light middleweight Roy Jones Jr. (silver at the 1988 Games). In the 2016 Games, two Val Barker Trophies were presented for the first time, one for men and one for women; women's boxing made its Olympic debut at the previous Games in 2012. The inaugural female winner was middleweight Claressa Shields who became the first American boxer to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals when she defeated Dutch boxer Nouchka Fontijn in Rio de Janeiro.

American boxers lead with six trophies, followed by Kazakhstani boxers with three awards and Russian boxers with two awards (one for the Soviet Union and one for Russia).

Recipients

Roy Jones Jr. was controversially denied a gold in 1988, but was recognized as the most stylistic boxer of the games
Claressa Shields in October 2012
Claressa Shields became the first recipient of the female variant of the trophy, after winning the gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro games in 2016
Games Location Boxer Nationality Weight class Medal Ref(s)
1936 Berlin Louis Laurie  United States Flyweight Bronze
1948 London George Hunter  South Africa Light heavyweight Gold
1952 Helsinki Norvel Lee  United States Light heavyweight Gold
1956 Melbourne Dick McTaggart  Great Britain Lightweight Gold
1960 Rome Nino Benvenuti  Italy Welterweight Gold
1964 Tokyo Valeri Popenchenko  Soviet Union Middleweight Gold
1968 Mexico City Philip Waruinge  Kenya Featherweight Bronze
1972 Munich Teófilo Stevenson  Cuba Heavyweight Gold
1976 Montreal Howard Davis Jr.  United States Lightweight Gold
1980 Moscow Patrizio Oliva  Italy Light welterweight Gold
1984 Los Angeles Paul Gonzales  United States Light flyweight Gold
1988 Seoul Roy Jones Jr.  United States Light middleweight Silver
1992 Barcelona Roberto Balado  Cuba Super heavyweight Gold
1996 Atlanta Vassiliy Jirov  Kazakhstan Light heavyweight Gold
2000 Sydney Oleg Saitov  Russia Welterweight Gold
2004 Athens Bakhtiyar Artayev  Kazakhstan Welterweight Gold
2008 Beijing Vasyl Lomachenko  Ukraine Featherweight Gold
2012 London Serik Sapiyev  Kazakhstan Welterweight Gold
2016 Rio de Janeiro Hasanboy Dusmatov  Uzbekistan Men's light flyweight Gold
Claressa Shields  United States Women's middleweight Gold
2020 Tokyo Not awarded due to the suspension of AIBA
2024 Paris Not awarded due to the suspension of AIBA

References

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