Featherweight (≤57 kilograms), Men

With 45 boxers taking part, the featherweight class was the most populated of any in the 1972 boxing tournament. A third round meeting paired two of the favourites together with Boris Kuznetzov, who had upset 1968 champion Valerian Sokolov to make the Soviet team, emerging victorious over Ryszard Tomczyk, the European champion from Poland. The most experienced boxer in the competition was Philip Waruinge of Kenya who was making his third Olympic appearance. As Kuznetzov made his way through the bottom half of the draw so Waruinge did likewise in the top half of the draw. Their meeting in the final proved to be the most contentious of the entire tournament and the announcement of the Soviet boxer’s victory by a 3-2 decision brought whistling, booing and shouts of “Schieber“ (fix) from the crowd inside the arena. Willi Hoepner (1923-1978), the Kenyan’s team West German coach, commented “The decision against Waruinge was a scandal. It was the East German judge that robbed us.“