was an Olympic boxing bronze medalist from

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, Japan.

Biography

Morioka won the inter-high school boxing tournament in his senior year, and entered

Kinki University is a private non-sectarian and coeducational university based in Higashiosaka, Osaka, Japan with campuses in five other locations: Nara, Nara; Ōsakasayama, Osaka; Uchita, Wakayama; Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima; and Iizuka, Fukuoka. The En ...

. He won the Japanese amateur boxing tournament four years in a row from 1965-1968. He was chosen as a member of the Japanese Olympic team for the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

, and won a bronze medal in the

bantamweight Bantamweight is a weight class in combat sports. For boxing, the range is above and up to . In kickboxing, a bantamweight fighter generally weighs between . In MMA, bantamweight is . The name for the class is derived from bantam chickens. B ...

division. He made his professional debut after graduating, but retired after it was discovered that he had suffered a detached retina. His professional record was 6-4-0 (3KOs). After retiring, he served as the commissioner of the Western Japan Boxing Commission from 1998-2000. He also founded a boxing gym in Kawanishi, Hyogo. He died from cancer in 2004, at 58 years of age. His nephew, Toshiyuki Morioka, has created a movie based on his life, which was released in Japan in January 2008.

Olympic results

*1968 won a bantamweight boxing bronze medal at the Mexico City Olympics. Results were: **Round of 32: Defeated Dominardo Calumarde (Philippines) on points (4-1) **Round of 16: Defeated Aldo Cosentino (France) on points (4-1) **Quarterfinal: Defeated Michael Dowling (Ireland) on points (4-1) **Semifinal: Lost to Valeri Sokolov (Soviet Union) on points (0-5) (was awarded bronze medal)

References

External links

*
Morioka Boxing Gym
1946 births 2004 deaths Deaths from cancer in Japan Bantamweight boxers Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Boxers at the 1968 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Osaka Olympic boxers of Japan Olympic medalists in boxing Japanese male boxers Medalists at the 1968 Summer Olympics {{Japan-boxing-bio-stub