The former boxer and first gold medal winner in about Olympic Games for Venezuela, Francisco 'Morochito' Rodríguez, He died at the age of 78, the Venezuelan Olympic Committee (COV) reported this Wednesday.
“The board of directors of the Venezuelan Olympic Committee joins the regrettable loss of our sport. Francisco 'Morochito' Rodríguez, the first athlete to play our anthem at the Olympic Games, left us without light without his presence,” the COV said in a message published on the social network X.
Likewise, he reported that after the wake, the body of the former athlete will be taken to the headquarters of the Ministry of Sports, in Caracas, where “the honors will be done along with the great family of Venezuelan sports.”
Francisco 'Morochito' Rodríguez He won the first gold medal for Venezuela at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, after beating the South Korean Yong-Ju Jee. In 2018, 'Morochito' Rodríguez said in an interview with EFE that he was left “with a blank mind” when the judge raised his arm to declare him the winner of the fight. “He just wanted to cry,” he confessed then.
Mourning
Photo:
Rodriguez, Originally from the state of Sucre (northeast), he grew up with fourteen siblings, one of them his twin, which earned him the nickname 'Morochito', and worked as a newspaper and fish seller. He began boxing at the age of eleven, influenced by who would eventually become his trainer, Pedro Gómez.
SPORTS
With EFE.
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