Yoel Finol: Venezuela’s Olympic Boxing Silver Medalist
Venezuelan boxer Yoel Finol won silver in the flyweight division at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He returned to the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, competing in the flyweight class.
Finol’s route to the Rio podium
Born on September 21, 1996, Finol was still a teenager when he competed in Rio. His earlier international record included a light-flyweight bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, where the category had a 49-kilogram limit.
At Rio, he boxed in the 52-kilogram flyweight division. He defeated the Dominican Republic’s Leonel de los Santos, Great Britain’s Muhammad Ali and Algeria’s Mohamed Flissi to reach the semifinals. Uzbekistan’s Shakhobiddin Zoirov then defeated him and went on to win the gold medal.
Finol originally finished on the bronze-medal podium. A subsequent official medal reallocation moved him to silver, which is the result now recorded by Olympedia. His silver therefore reflects the final amended standings rather than an appearance in the Olympic final.
Returning at Tokyo 2020
The Tokyo Games took place in 2021, although they retained the Tokyo 2020 name. Finol again entered the flyweight tournament but lost his opening contest to Japan’s Ryomei Tanaka by unanimous decision, finishing tied for seventeenth.
The two Olympic appearances produced different outcomes, with Rio remaining his medal-winning campaign. The embedded video above shows a separate 2023 Pan American Games contest at 57 kilograms, illustrating another stage of his international career rather than either Olympic tournament.
Sources
- Rio flyweight draw and amended standings
- Olympedia athlete record
- Rio 2016 boxing results
Tags
Boxing, Boxing History
