Team Slovakia
1 (1+0)
MEN'S
-75kg Middleweight: Andrej Csemez
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Slovakia competed at the Olympic Games in boxing only once in the post Czechoslovakia era. And it was already at the very first games the new country attended, in Atlanta in 1996, we even had there two boxers, two men, but they both lost their opening fights. Peter Baláž in the 1st round to Indonesian opponent and Gabriel Križan to a French boxer in 2nd round after having a bye in the opening round.
The 23 years old Andrej Csemez, a boy no one in his neighborhood will calls him by any other name than by his nickname "Bandi" was not even born when our boxing was at the Olympics for the last time. But, thanks to this wonder kid the incredibly long droughts (25 years) of Slovak boxing will finally close.
The former EU 2018 champion and Minsk 2019 European Games Bronze medalist won his quota to Tokyo at the European Qualifying Tournament after beating Ryszard Lewicki of Poland in the opening round and was scheduled to face Miguel Cuadrado of Spain next, but the competition was postponed after three days due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Returning from England he tested positive for the virus, becoming the first Slovak athlete to do so, and had to go into quarantine with the entire Slovak team. But did not gave up his big dream, continued to prepare himself and when the qualifying tournament re-started in France this May (more than a year and half after his 1st match) he faced the Spaniard and won again 5-0 to advance to the quarterfinal and direct olympic qualifiying match.
In that what can be named as historic bout for Slovak boxing he defeated the Belgian Lancelot Proton de la Chappele again 5-0 and qualified himself to the games and returned the country after long, very very long 25 years back to the Olympics Boxing ring.
As I wrote, Slovakia never won a medal at the Olympics in Boxing since the independence, in fact, never won a single match at the Olympics so far. The country will be looking at our "Bandi" this late July/early August to finally change that.
But it is appropriate to mention that in the Czechoslovak era, the former TCH won 6 Boxing medals, 3 of them by Slovak boxers, 2 of them gold, the legendary Ján Zachara in 1952 and Július Torma in 1948, the last medal is from the Moscow 1980 games, Bronze of Ján Franek.