Giovanni Parisi (2 December 1967 – 25 March 2009) was an Italian boxer, who won the gold medal in the Men's Featherweight (57 kg) category at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represe ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

1988 Olympic results

Below is the record of Giovanni Parisi, an Italian featherweight boxer who competed at the 1988 Seoul Olympics: * Round of 64: bye * Round of 32: defeated Lu Chih Hsiung (Taipei) by decision, 5-0 * Round of 16: defeated Mikhail Kazaryan (Soviet Union) referee stopped contest in the second round * Quarterfinal: defeated Ya'acov Shmuel (Israel) by decision, 5-0 * Semifinal: defeated Abdelhak Achik (Morocco) referee stopped contest in the first round * Final: defeated Daniel Dumitrescu (Romania) by first-round knockout (won gold medal)

Professional career

A native of

Vibo Valentia Vibo Valentia (; Monteleone before 1861; Monteleone di Calabria from 1861 to 1928; or ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Calabria, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the province of Vibo Valentia, and ...

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, Parisi began his professional career in 1989 and won the vacant WBO lightweight title by defeating Javier Altamirano in 1992. He later defeated former champion Freddie Pendleton and in 1995 challenged Mexican legend

Julio César Chávez Julio César Chávez González (; born July 12, 1962), also known as Julio César Chávez Sr., is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1980 to 2005. A multiple-time world champion in three weight divisions, Chávez was liste ...

for the WBC light-welterweight Title, losing a unanimous decision. Parisi went on to capture the WBO light-welterweight title and defend it successfully six times. He lost the WBO light-welterweight belt to Carlos Gonzalez in May 1998, and failed in a challenge for the welterweight title against Daniel Santos in July 2000. He last fought in September 2006, when he lost a majority decision against Frederic Klose in Milan for the European welterweight crown.

Professional boxing record

Death

On 25 March 2009, Parisi was driving a car at

Voghera image:Voghera Castle.jpg, The Castle of Voghera in a 19th-century etching. Voghera (Emilian dialect, Vogherese dialect of Emilian: ''Vughera''; Latin language, Latin: ''Forum Iulii Iriensium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Pavia i ...

, near

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

, when it crashed head-on with a truck. Parisi died at the scene; he was 41.

References

External links