RyÅta Murata
Ryota Murata (Japanese村田 谅 太, Murata Ryota; born January 12, 1986 in Nara, Nara Prefecture) is a Japanese boxer at middleweight. It was 2011 Vice World Champion and 2012 Olympic champion.
Boxing career
The 1.82 m wide Murata was Japanese middleweight champion in 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
His first internationally significant achievement was winning a bronze medal in the middleweight division at the 23th Asian Games in 2005 in Ho Chi Minh City. He also participated in 2005 and 2007 at the World Championships in Mianyang and Chicago, however, was able to achieve a medal placement. In 2008 he took part in the Asian qualifiers for the Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, however, where he lost to Elshod Rasulov and Homayoun Amiri and thus eliminated.
In 2011 he won the International President's Cup in Jakarta and the Japanese National Trials. From September to October of the same year, he also participated in the 16th World Championships in Baku. There, he won his first round fights prematurely each Leandro Sanchez from Argentina and two -time world champion Abbo Atoyev from Uzbekistan. In the third preliminary round fight he won against the Iranians Mohammad Sattarpoor with 22:11 clearly on points through and moved into the second round, where he defeated the Germans Stefan Härtel 18:15 on points. In the quarterfinals, he beat the reigning European vice-champion Darren O'Neill from Ireland 18:9 and thus the semi-finals, where he clearly also defeated the Brazilians Esquiva Falcao Florentino with 24:11. In the subsequent final he met the Ukrainian Evhen Khytrov, who was given only just beaten by 22:24.
He thus qualified for the 30th Summer Olympic Games 2012 in London, where he went through a bye in the second round and then the same Algerian Abdelmalek Rahou 21:12 defeated on points. In the quarterfinals, he won with 17:13 against the Turks Adem Kilicci and thus the semi-finals, where he defeated the Uzbeks Abbo Atoyev 13:12. He stood thus in the final against Brazilian Esquiva Falcao Florentino, whom he defeated with 14:13. He was the first Japanese Olympic gold medalist in boxing since 1964 ( Takao Sakurai ).
On August 25, 2013, he played under the promoter Top Rank, Inc., his first professional fight in Tokyo, he by TKO won in the second round against Akio Shibata ( 21-7 ). On December 6, 2013, he defeated Dave Peterson also (13-1 ) by TKO in the eighth round. In February 2014 he also won early against Carlos Nascimento ( 29-3 ).