Patrick Cowdell (born 18 August 1953) is a British former boxer. He challenged twice for the WBC world featherweight title in 1981 and 1985.

Amateur career

Cowdell won the bronze medal in the

bantamweight Bantamweight is a weight class in combat sports and weightlifting. For boxing, the range is above and up to . In kickboxing, a bantamweight fighter generally weighs between . In mixed martial arts, MMA, bantamweight is . The name for the class ...

division (– 54 kg) at the

1976 Summer Olympics The 1976 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Montreal 1976 (), were an international multi-sport event held from July 17 to August 1, 1976, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal ...

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, Quebec, Canada. In the semi-finals he was beaten by eventual gold medalist Gu Yong-Ju from

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

. Two years earlier Cowdell won the gold medal, at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in

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, New Zealand. He was a bronze medalist at the 1975 European Amateur Boxing Championships held in

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, Poland. He was also the 1973 ABA bantamweight champion, lightweight in 1975, and featherweight champion in 1976 and 1977.

1976 Olympic results

*Round of 64: bye *Round of 32: Defeated Leszek Borkowski (Poland) by decision, 5–0 *Round of 16: Defeated Alejandro Silva (Puerto Rico) by decision, 5–0 *Quarterfinal: Defeated Reynaldo Fortaleza (Philippines) by decision, 4–1 *Semifinal: Lost to Gu Yong-Ju (North Korea) by decision, 1–4 (was awarded bronze medal)

Professional career

Cowdell turned pro in 1977 and in 1981 took on WBC world featherweight champion Salvador Sánchez, losing a close and hard-fought split decision in which Cowdell was dropped in round 15. In 1985 Cowdell challenged Azumah Nelson for the WBC featherweight title, but was caught cold by a bullet of a punch and knocked out in the first round. He fought on but retired in 1988 after being stopped by Welshman Floyd Havard. He finished up with stats of 36–6–0 (18 KOs) that included spells as British, Commonwealth and European Champion.

Life after boxing

Pat runs four professional dinner shows a year at the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham's city centre. In February 2007, Cowdell returned to putting shows on at the Burlington after a three-year hiatus at the

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– also in the centre of Birmingham. He also trains/trained a band of fighters that include Bedworth's former Midland Area super-middleweight champion Neil Tidman, Leamington Spa's Richard Mazurek, and Coventry foursome Dougie Walton, Sean McKervey, Joe McCluskey and John Ruddock. Cowdell's most famous pupil, Birmingham-based gypsy Jimmy Vincent, twice challenged for the British title before retiring in 2005.

References

* (archived) * (archived) * * (archived)

External links