November 29, 2025
A year before turning pro, 19-year-old George Foreman won a boxing gold medal at the 1968 Summer Games.
A year before turning pro, 19-year-old George Foreman won a boxing gold medal at the 1968 Summer Games, and that medal is now up for auction.
According to TMZ, the medal has been placed up for auction at Lelands. Foreman won the gold medal at the Olympics on Oct. 29, 1968, after beating Jonas Cepulis of the Soviet Union, when the referee stopped the fight in the second round. Anyone interested in owning the item has until Dec. 6, when the online auction ends.
The starting bid was $2,500.
Lelands stated that they obtained the medal from a woman who was once a neighbor of the heavyweight champion when he lived in Houston in the 1970s. She allowed him to use her garage as storage. In recent years, after cleaning her house, she discovered the medal, along with other items, including two passports and his driver’s license, in the garage. She stated that the gold medal was found in a box containing some of his trophies.
The auction house stated that the gold medal “is highly likely” to be the medal he won, although it had to be cleaned after being in the box for so many years. They state that it’s in excellent condition, but also warn that they “cannot say for certain without a photo-match or the original plaque” confirms its authenticity.
Two years after Foreman became a professional boxer, he became the World Heavyweight Champion on January 22, 1973, when he scored a second-round knockout of Joe Frazier. After two successful defenses of the title, he met Muhammad Ali in the infamous “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match in Zaire, Africa. On October 30, 1974, almost six years to the day that he won his gold medal, he lost the title to Ali.
He became the oldest boxer to win the heavyweight title in 1987, when he knocked out Michael Moorer in the 10th round. He was 45 when he achieved that accomplishment at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The boxer died earlier this year in March at the age of 76.
RELATED CONTENT: ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ Boxing Legend George Foreman Dies At 76
