Yankiel León Alarcón (born 26 April 1982 in
Jobabo) is a
Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
n amateur
boxer best known for winning the bantamweight silver medal at the
2008 Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fr ...
.
Career
Leon won gold at the World Junior Championships in Budapest, Hungary in 2000 as a light flyweight.
became senior national champion 2002 at flyweight then moved up.
At bantam he stood in the shadows of near-invincible two-time Olympic champion
Guillermo Rigondeaux
Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz (; born 30 September 1980) is a Cuban professional boxer. Who held the unified WBA (Super), WBO and '' Ring'' magazine super bantamweight titles between 2013 and 2017, and the WBA (Regular) bantamweight title fro ...
who beat him eight times. When Rigondeaux was out injured in 2007 Leon lost at the national championships to
Yasniel Toledo.
After it became clear that the banned Rigondeaux would not be sent to Beijing, Leon trained harder and beat archrival Toledo and Yurien Fabregas at the nationals 2008.
He lost to local Dominican
Claudio Marrero in the first round of the ''Copa Independencia'' but breezed through his qualifier, beating everybody including Marrero and fellow qualifier
Oscar Valdez to easily make it to the Olympics.
He holds wins over
Yan Bartelemí,
Yuriorkis Gamboa and
Iván Calderón (PUR) among others.
Olympic Games results
*1st round bye
*Defeated
Kanat Abutalipov
Kanat Kalizhanovich Abutalipov (; born March 22, 1983, in Barshino) is a Kazakhstani boxer who competed at the 2008 Olympics at bantamweight but lost his only fight to eventual silver medallist Yankiel León (3:10) from Cuba.
At the World Ch ...
(Kazakhstan) 10-3
*Defeated
Worapoj Petchkoom (Thailand) 10-2
*Defeated
Bruno Julie (Mauritius) 7-5
*Lost final to
Enkhbatyn Badar-Uugan
Enkhbatyn Badar-Uugan (; born 3 June 1985, in Ulaanbaatar) is a retired boxer from Mongolia who became the first Olympic boxing champion from his country when he won the gold medal in the Bantamweight (-54 kg) division at the 2008 Summer Olymp ...
5-16
External links
*
Nationals 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leon, Yankiel
1982 births
Living people
Bantamweight boxers
Boxers at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Olympic boxers for Cuba
Olympic silver medalists for Cuba
Olympic medalists in boxing
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Cuban male boxers
People from Jobabo
Sportspeople from Las Tunas Province
AIBA World Boxing Championships medalists
21st-century Cuban sportsmen