Carmine Vingo fights, including a unanimous decision over highly regarded 16-2 contender Joe Modzele on a boxing card at Yankee Stadium in August 1949. A second round knockout of Al Robinson at Sunnyside Garden in Queens, New York, propelled Vingo into the world heavyweight rankings, and a crossroads bout with rising Rocky Marciano to determine a serious 'white hope' successor challenger for former world heavyweight champion Joe Louis and world heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott. On December 30, 1949, at Madison Square Garden, Vingo, then 16-1, and Marciano, 24-0, fought a slugfest. Marciano put Vingo down in the first and second rounds.
Keshorn Walcott He won the Olympic javelin gold medal with a throw of 84.58m (277 ft 6 in). He defeated a string of top athletes to win the competition including 90-metre thrower Tero Pitkämäki and two-time defending Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen, as well as Veselý, Oleksandr Pyatnytsya and Antti Ruuskanen. This made Walcott the youngest-ever Olympic champion in javelin throw and the second non-European to win the Olympic gold in men's javelin throw since American thrower Cy Young in Helsinki in 1952. Steve Backley, a former three-time Olympic medalist in the javelin remarked that it was a "surprise win for Keshorn Walcott.