Edelweiss Rodriguez

Edelweis
Data
Birth Name	Edelweiss Rodriguez
Weight class	Bantamweight
nationality	Italy
birthday	June 26, 1911
place of birth	Rimini
Date of death	February 22, 1962
size	1.52 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	35
Victories	22nd
Knockout victories	1
Defeats	9
draw	3

Edelweiss Rodriguez (born June 26, 1911 in Rimini ; † February 22, 1962 there ) was an Italian boxer .

Edelweiss Rodriguez came from Rimini, which was a stronghold of Italian boxing. He fought his first fight at the age of 17. He was Italian champion several times, the first time in 1929. He represented the national team 21 times, and at the European Boxing Championships in Budapest in 1930 he won the bronze medal in the bantamweight division . In 1932 Edelweiss Rodriguez started at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in the flyweight division . In the quarterfinals he was eliminated from the eventual Olympic champion from Hungary , István Énekes .

Rodriguez then turned professional . By 1940 he had completed 34 boxing matches, of which he won 21, in 1947 he competed one last time and won. He fought his fights primarily in Italy and Switzerland. In 1934 he became Italian professional master in fly and in Rimini in bantamweight, he won the bantam title three more times. In 1938 he went to Ethiopia , where he completed nine boxing matches and worked as a hairdresser; In 1940 he was "East Africa Champion" in Addis Ababa . When the Second World War broke out, Rodriguez was drafted as a soldier in Ethiopia, although at 1.52 meters he was actually too short for military service. In November 1946, he returned after several years of captivity back to Italy.

After finishing his sporting career, Rodriguez opened a newspaper kiosk next to the Grattacielo di Rimini , which became a local institution. After his early cardiac death in 1962, it was taken over by his son, Edelweiss Rodriguez junior. The son, just as popular in his hometown as his father, had to give up his own boxing career for health reasons and became a referee ; he died in 2013.

In Rimini a street is named after the father Via Edelweiss Rodriguez Senior .

Web links

• Una dedica all'olimpionico, campione d'Italia dei mosca e dei gallo: Edelweiss Rodriguez. news.boxeringweb.net, June 19, 2013, accessed April 28, 2014 (Italian). 
• Edelweiss Rodriguez in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Edelweiss Rodriguez in the BoxRec database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Edelweiss Rodriguez. (No longer available online.) Sport.comune.rimini.it, archived from the original on April 29, 2014 ; Retrieved April 28, 2014 . 
2. ^ Rimini dice Addio a Edelweiss Rodriguez Jr, che condivise la Passione del Padre. (No longer available online.) Nqnews.it, June 18, 2013, archived from the original on April 29, 2014 ; Retrieved April 28, 2014 (Italian).