Cosimo Pinto

Cosimo Pinto (born March 14, 1943 in Novara ) is a former Italian boxer . He was Olympic champion in Tokyo in 1964 in the light heavyweight division.

Career

Cosimo Pinto grew up in Novara and started boxing as a teenager. He soon joined the Italian armed forces and received intensive support there. At the age of 20 he had become the best Italian amateur boxer in the light heavyweight division alongside Giulio Saraudi .

In 1963 he started for Italy at the Mediterranean Games in Naples and won there in the light heavyweight division by winning the final over Frenchman Cosimo Bruno. In the same year he also succeeded in winning the tournament at the pre-Olympic Games in Tokyo by a techn. KO victory in the 3rd round over the Japanese Tadayuki Maruyama .

In May 1964 he won the middleweight division of the CISM World Military Championships in Tunis . He defeated the German starter Schneider by breaking off in the first round. How important this victory was for the Italian military can be seen from the fact that Cosimo Pinto had to train almost 8 kg for this championship in order to start in the middleweight division, since Giulio Saraudi was used in the light heavyweight division. Considering the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo, in which Cosimo Pinto wanted to start again in the light heavyweight division, a risky undertaking.

Cosimo Pinto put up with this rapid treatment, as you could see from his result at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Namely, he became an Olympic light heavyweight champion. On the way there he defeated Rudi Lubbers , Netherlands , with 5-0 judges votes and Jürgen Schlegel from the GDR with 4-1 judges votes on points. In the semifinals he was the demolition winner over the Bulgarian Alexander Nikolow and in the final he managed a narrow 3-2 point victory over the Soviet starter Alexei Kisseljow .

In the following years, Cosimo Pinto dosed his starts very carefully. He was Italian light heavyweight champion only in 1965 and 1967. It was not until 1967, when the European championship of amateur boxers took place in Rome , that he again took part in an international championship. He won there in the light heavyweight division against Georgi Stankow from Bulgaria by disqualification in the 3rd round and defeated Kurt Baumgarten from Switzerland on points. Against Peter Gerber from the Federal Republic of Germany he lost in the semifinals by techn. KO in the 3rd round and thus took 3rd place.

Then he resigned, only 25 years old, and devoted himself to his military career. He never became a professional boxer.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, Wed = Middleweight, Hs = Light Heavyweight)

1963, 1st place , Mediterranean Games in Naples , Hs, in front of Cosimo Bruno, France , Francisco San Jose Perez, Spain a . Dimitrios Kyrazis, Greece ;
1963, 1st place , Pre-Olympic Games in Tokyo , Hs, ahead of Tadayuki Maruyama , Japan ;
1964, 1st place , CISM military world championship in Tunis , Wed, ahead of Schneider, FRG ;
1964, gold medal , OS in Tokyo, Hs, before Alexei Kisseljow , USSR , Alexander Nikolow, Bulgaria a . Zbigniew Pietrzykowski , Poland ;
1967, 3rd place , EM in Rome , HS, behind Danas Pozniakas , USSR a . Peter Gerber , FRG , together with Ion Monea , Romania

International match

1963 in Bucharest , Romania against Italy, Hs, points winner over Mentzel

swell

Box Sport magazine from 1963 to 1967,
Box Almanach 1920 - 1980 , published by the German Amateur Boxing Association, 1980,
Website "www.amateur-boxing.strefa.pl",
Website "www.boxrec.com",
Website "www.samuraiservice.it"