Ian Epton

Edinburgh-born Ian Epton started wrestling before he emigrated to Northern Rhodesia in the early 1950s. He reached the semi-final of the bantamweight division of the Scottish Novices Amateur Championship at Leith in 1949 just three days before his 17th birthday and was a Scotland reserve for the triangular match against England and Ireland in 1951. He was also a reserve for the 1952 Olympics.

After emigrating, Epton won a bronze medal for Northern Rhodesia at the 1954 Vancouver British Empire and Commonwealth Games and four years later he won the flyweight gold medal representing South Africa. It would be 60 years before a South African won another men’s wrestling gold medal at the Games, when Martin Erasmus won 97kg gold in 2018.