Emilio Correa

During the 1970s Cuban welterweight boxer Emilio Correa won gold at the Olympics, Pan American Games, and the Central American and Caribbean Games. Correa began his boxing career in his local gym when he was 14-years-old. Four years later he had worked his way up to being selected for the Cuban national team, with him winning gold at the 1971 Summer Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia. A year later he competed at the 1972 München Olympics where he beat János Kajdi of Hungary in the final to win the gold medal. Correa was one of three Cuban boxers to win gold on the same day at the München Games, with Orlando Martínez (bantamweight) and Teófilo Stevenson (heavyweight) both winning their respective weight divisions.

Correa won six national titles during the 1970s, including five consecutive titles from 1973 to 1977, and gold at the 1974 Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo. Also in 1974 the World Amateur Boxing Championships were held in Cuba, where Correa won gold with victory against Clint Jackson of the United States. At the 1975 Pan American Games, however, Jackson got his revenge by beating Correa in the semi-finals to win gold, with the Cuban taking a bronze. The following year he boxed at his second Olympics when he fought at the 1976 Montréal Games. After victory against Plamen Yankov, he then lost to the eventual silver medallist Pedro José Gamarro after the referee stopped the contest. By 1978 his form was in decline after losing the national title to compatriot Alejandro Montoya.

Following his retirement Correa spent five years working in the technical group of the Cuban national selectors before working in a similar role in Bolivia in the early 1990s. His son, also named Emilio, followed in his father’s footsteps, winning multiple titles and medals, including a silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Both later moved to Brazil to escape the crisis in Cuba.