Horace Gwynne

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Olympic medal record
Men's Boxing
Gold	Los Angeles 1932	Bantamweight

Horace ("Lefty") Gwynne (born October 5, 1913 in Toronto) was a bantamweight professional boxer from Canada, who competed in the 1930s and won the gold medal at the 1932 Summer Olympics. He was still an amateur when he won the gold medal.

Gwynne left school after grade 8, weighing only 65 lb (29.5 kg). When he started to grow, he began working out in Stokley's Gym in Toronto to lose weight in order to become a jockey. At age ninteen he won the Canadian amateur flyweight championship in London, Ontario. He entered the 1932 Olympic trials as a bantamweight, a class permitting up to 118 lb (53.5 kg); he weighed 116.

He won the Canadian amateur bantamweight title, which sent him to the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, despite his having fought only fifteen bouts. He won the Olympic gold medal match against the German Hans Ziglarski, knocking him down in the second round. Immediately after the Olympics he turned professional. He won the Canadian professional bantamweight title in 1935 and held it until 1939, retiring undefeated.

Gwynne has been inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

[edit] Reference

Canadian Olympic Committee

Olympic Boxing Champions (Bantamweight)

1904: Oliver Kirk (USA) • 1908: Henry Thomas (GBR) • 1920: Clarence Walker (RSA) • 1924: William Smith (RSA) • 1928: Vittorio Tamagnini (ITA) • 1932: Horace Gwynne (CAN) • 1936: Ulderico Sergo (ITA) • 1948: Tibor Csík (HUN) • 1952: Pentti Hämäläinen (FIN) • 1956: Wolfgang Behrendt (GER) • 1960: Oleg Grigoryev (URS) • 1964: Takao Sakurai (JPN) • 1968: Valerian Sokolov (URS) • 1972: Orlando Martínez (CUB) • 1976: Gu Yong-Ju (PRK) • 1980: Juan Hernández (CUB) • 1984: Maurizio Stecca (ITA) • 1988: Kennedy McKinney (USA) • 1992: Joel Casamayor (CUB) • 1996: István Kovács (HUN) • 2000: Guillermo Rigondeaux (CUB) • 2004: Guillermo Rigondeaux (CUB)