{"id":114670,"date":"2025-09-04T19:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/114670\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T19:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:19:07","slug":"roy-jones-jr-gets-1988-olympic-gold-medal-from-the-man-who-beat-him-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/114670\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr gets 1988 Olympic gold medal from the man who beat him | Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.<\/p>\n

Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American\u2019s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,\u201d Park said in the video<\/a> through his son, who translated.<\/p>\n

Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: \u201cWow, that is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing\u2019s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics. Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport\u2019s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,\u201d Jones wrote in his Instagram post.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-114670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}