José Luis "Cely" Villanueva (March 19, 1913 – November 11, 1983) was an amateur boxer from the Philippines who represented his country at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Born in Binondo, Manila, he won the bronze medal in the bantamweight class after winning the fight for third place against Joseph Lang.
At the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, Villanueva claimed the Philippines its first Olympic medal in boxing.[1] He gained a bye and bested Japan's Akira Nakao in the quarterfinals. However, his run was cut short after he fell to eventual gold medalist Horace Gwynne of Canada in their semifinal clash. He closed out his campaign with a victory over USA's Joseph Lang in the bronze medal match.[2]
Below are the results of boxer José Villanueva who competed for the Philippines as a bantamweight at the 1932 Olympic boxing tournament in Los Angeles:
Round of 16: bye
Quarterfinal: defeated Akira Nakao (Japan) on points
Bronze Medal Bout: won by walkover over Joseph Lang (USA)
Professional career
After the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, Villanueva turned pro.[3] There are no records of how his professional boxing career went.[4]
Later life
Villanueva later on became a boxing trainer. One of his trained fighters was Gabriel Elorde who won a world 130-pound title and held it for seven years. His son, Anthony Villanueva, also became a boxer, and won a silver medal during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was one of his son's first trainers.[5] To this day, they are the only Filipino father-and-son duo to win Olympic medals.[6] He also worked as a Malacañang employee until the early 70s.[7]
