STEVENSON, TEFILO

born March 29, 1952, Las Tunas, Oriente, Cuba Cuban heavyweight boxer who became the first fighter to win three Olympic gold medals in one weight class and one of only two to win three World Amateur Boxing titles. The 6 foot 3 inch Stevenson shocked the boxing world in the quarterfinals of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich by defeating the highly touted American Duane Bobick, who had beaten Stevenson the previous year in the Pan American Games. Stevenson won the gold medal by default when Ion Alexe of Romania was unable to fight in the final because of a broken thumb. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Stevenson crushed his first three opponents in a record 7 min 22 sec, then knocked out Mircea Simon of Romania in the final. Istvn Levai of Hungary used an evasive strategy in the semifinals of the 1980 Games in Moscow to become the first Olympic boxer to go the distance with Stevenson, but Stevenson prevailed and went on to win his third gold medal. The Hungarian fighter Lszl Papp had also won three Olympic gold medals in boxing (1948, 1952, and 1956), but Papp had won once as a middleweight and twice as a light middleweight. Stevenson won three world amateur titles (as a heavyweight in 1974 and 1978 and as a super-heavyweight in 1986), a mark matched only by fellow Cuban Adolfo Horta. His devastating left jab and powerful right would have been a serious challenge to the leading professional fighters of his day, and promoters actively sought to induce him to turn professional. However, he was staunchly opposed to the professional circuit, which he believed exploited fighters, and he remained an amateur until his retirement in 1987.