Early Years and Amateur Career
Originally, Peter's preferred sport was soccer. In 1992, some boxers came to Peter's school to train. The curious young 11-year-old stopped by and asked if he could train along with them. He was put up against an experienced amateur and knocked him out. This marked the beginning of a successful amateur career for Peter.
Samuel Peter won the Nigerian amateur heavyweight championship and the Africa Zone 3 Heavyweight championship. He faced stiff competition as an amateur (including a knockout victory over 2000 Silver Medalist Mukhtarkhan Dildabekov of Kazakhstan). However, he prevailed and was given the opportunity to represent Nigeria at the 2000 Sydney, Australia Summer Olympics.
Peter lost in the quarterfinals to Italian Paolo Vidoz by decision. However, his performance was noted for being very impressive from such a young pugilist and hence more excitement was generated for him than the eventual Gold Medalist, Audley Harrison, to whom Peter had lost a very close decision just a few months before the Olympics.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Peter
Famous quotes containing the words early, years, amateur and/or career:
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
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Too far in years to be a pupil now.”
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“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
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