Winner’s medal issued for the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics. Silver, 60 mm, 125 gm, by Ilya Postol, Moscow. The front, inscribed in Cyrillic, features a ‘Seated Victory’ with the Colosseum in the background, the reverse features the Moscow Olympic emblem and Olympic flame, and the bottom edge is engraved “БОКС,” which translates to Boxing. Boxing at the 1980 Summer Olympics took place at the Indoor Stadium of the Olympiski Sports Complex in Moscow from July 20th to August 2nd. Eleven men’s boxing events were contested with the participation of 271 fighters from 51 countries. Cuba led the field with 10 winner’s medals (6 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze), while the Soviet Union and East Germany racked up eight and six, respectively, with the former winning six of the total 11 awarded silver medals for boxing.
The United States led sixty-five countries in a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only 452 silver medals were produced for the Games, 204 of which were actually awarded to athletes. Between the important historical events surrounding the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the scarcity of these medals, they hold a special international appeal and are sought by collectors worldwide.
