Caldwell, John

John Caldwell was born on May 7, 1938 in Belfast . He began to actively engage in boxing in early childhood, was trained at the local club Immakulata under the guidance of coach Jack McKasker. Thanks to a series of successful performances, he was awarded the right to defend the country's honor at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne - he managed to get to the flyweight semifinal here, after which he lost Romanian Mircea Dobrescu on points.

Having received a bronze Olympic medal, Caldwell for some time continued to enter the ring as part of the Irish national team, taking part in all major international tournaments. So, in 1957 he won the match against Italy and visited the European Championship in Prague, where, however, in his first match at the tournament he lost to the German Manfred Homberg , who eventually won first place. Shortly after these competitions, he decided to try himself among the professionals and left the team (there are 240 amateur fights in his track record, 234 of them ended in victory).

Caldwell's professional debut took place in February 1958, he defeated his first rival Englishman Billy Downer by knockout in the second round. Over the next two years, he spent many successful fights and in October 1960 won the title of champion of Great Britain in the lightest weight category. Later he rose to the lightest weight and in 1962 fought for the world title with the Brazilian Eder Joffrey - lost by technical knockout in the tenth round. He also tried to become the champion of Britain and the Commonwealth countries, boxed with his Olympic team- mate Frederick Gilroy , but during the match he received a serious cut over his eye, and the fight had to be stopped.

Subsequently, John Caldwell twice more tried to get the titles of the champion of Great Britain and the countries of the Commonwealth, but both times failed. He ended his career as an athlete at the end of 1965, after losing to the Englishman Monty Lod. In total, in professional boxing he spent 35 fights, of which 29 ended with victory (including 14 ahead of schedule), lost 5 times, in one case a draw was recorded. He was married, raised a daughter.

He died in Belfast on July 10, 2009 from laryngeal cancer ^{[1] [2]} .

• John Caldwell - Olympic Statistics at Sports-Reference.com
• John Caldwell - professional boxing statistics for BoxRec