The Val Barker Trophy for best boxer at the Olympics

I find it odd how many legends were passed over only to give the award to someone nobody would ever hear from again.

1948 George Hunter, over Pascual Perez and Laszlo Papp.
1952 Norvel Lee, not say Floyd Patterson?
1956 Richard McTaggart, instead of Laszlo Papp?
1960 Giovanni Benvenuti, alright good call but Ali was at the games too.
1964 Valeri Popenchenko, instead of Joe Frazier?
1968 Philip Waruinge, instead of George Foreman?
1972 Teofilo Stevenson, another good call.
1976 Howard Davis Jr, not Ray Leonard or Michael Spinks?
1980 Patrizio Oliva, instead of Teofilo Stevenson again.
1984 Paul Gonzalez, instead of Pernell Whitaker, Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, or Virgil Hill?
1988 Roy Jones Jr. Good call.
1992 Roberto Balado, a good pick but overlooking Oscar De La Hoya, Chris Byrd, Felix Savon, and Joel Casamayor.
1996 Vassiliy Jirov, alright we heard about him but not like Floyd Mayweather, or Wladimir Klitschko.
2000 Oleg Saitov, not Guillermo Rigondeaux.
2004 Bakhtiyar Artayev, instead of Andre Ward, Guillermo Rigondeaux, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Amir Khan, Gennady Golovkin, or Alexander Povetkin?
2008 Vasyl Lomachenko. Good pick.

Anybody think that the Val Barker Trophy is a better predictor of merit than the Oscars?

 

How so?

For the same reason that Roy Jones Jr won it. He was a talented young athlete, who I hear (I haven't seen the fight) got robbed of a gold medal.

Actually, no. I must plead my ignorance.

I'm sorry to hear that. If I ever gave the impression that I was a fount of knowledge, instead of an enthusiastic novice, then I apologize. I come here to learn and to share my love of the sport with other like minded fans. I'm not like yourself or Klompton who can write entire books about the subject.

Well, you learn something new every day. Thank you for instructing me Turpinr. I'm excited to learn of this gentleman. Based on what Flea has said, I'm afraid this thread shows my ignorance about amateur boxing.

No. I assure you, this was entirely in earnest. Never ascribe to malice that which can best be explained by ignorance.

 

This may or may not surprise you Flea, but from time to time I say or write things which make me look quite foolish and uninformed. I've put my foot in it on this forum once or twice before on this very forum commenting about Greb, Langford, and Young Griffo, just to name a few. The best I can promise is that once I find my error I won't make it a second time. From the looks of things, these fellows were very elite amateurs and a few of them have Wikipedia pages about them I should have consulted before posting. This McTaggart fellow even has a documentary about him on youtube which I suspect I will now have to watch.