Danas Pozniakas

Danas Pozniakas

Personal information
Born	19 October 1939(1939-10-19) Tolchak,Białystok,Soviet Union
Died	4 February 2005(2005-02-05)(aged 65) Vilnius,Lithuania
Height	182 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	81 kg (179 lb)
Sport
Sport	Boxing
Club	Armed Forces sports society(1959–1966) Trudovye RezervyVilnius (1968–1969)
Medal record RepresentingtheSoviet Union Olympic Games 1968 Mexico City -81 kg European Amateur Championships 1963 Moscow -81 kg 1965 Berlin -81 kg 1967 Rome -81 kg 1969 Bucharest -81 kg

Danas Pozniakas(19 October 1939 – 4 February 2005) was aLithuanianamateur light-heavyweightboxerwho won the European title in 1965, 1967 and 1969 and an Olympic gold medal in 1968.

Pozniakas was born in Poland asDan Pozniak,and in the 1950s moved to Vilnius, Lithuania, where he took up boxing at age 13. He won the Soviet title in 1962 and a European silver medal in 1963, but at the 1964 Olympic trials lost toAleksei Kiselyovand was not selected. By the next Olympics, he was a double European champion and a clear favorite. He decisively won his first three bouts and received the Olympic gold by default, as his opponentIon Moneahad a broken nose from his previous fight and withdrew from the final. Monea lost to Pozniakas in the 1967 and 1969 European championships.

Pozniakas became theHonoured Master of Sports of the USSRin 1965 and was selected as theLithuanian Sportsperson of the Yearin 1968; in 1969 he was awarded theOrder of the Red Banner of Labour.He retired around 1969 with a record of 203 wins out of 217 bouts. In 1974, he became anAIBAinternational referee and later coached the national team ofSeychellesin 1983–88. Between 1991 and 1994 he served as president of Lithuanian Boxing Federation. He died of a heart attack in 2005, aged 65. Since his death in 2005, an annual boxing tournament is held in Vilnius, in his honor.

External links

• Danas PozniakasatOlympedia