Uzbek atheletes were particularly successful at the 2021 Olympic games in Tokyo. The country won three gold medals: Ulugbek Rashitov in Taekwondo, Akbar Djuraev in Weightlifting and Bakhodir Jalolov in Boxing. Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina also competed in her 8th Olympic games under the Uzbek flag at the event.
Since its independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has taken part in the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics with increasing success. Uzbekistan has competed four times at the Summer Olympics, collecting one gold medal and five bronze medals in boxing, two gold medals and two silver medals in wrestling, and a silver medal in judo. Uzbekistan's only medal at the Winter Olympics was a gold medal in cross-country skiing in 1994. In the 2016 Rio Olympics Ruslan Nurudinov won gold in the men's 105kg weightlifting, lifting a total of 431kg, including an Olympic record 237kg in the clean and jerk.
Ruslan Shamilevich Chagaev
Ruslan Shamilevich Chagaev (born 19 October 1978) is an Uzbekistani former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2016. He held the WBA heavyweight title twice and was the first Asian boxer to win a world heavyweight title by any of the four major sanctioning bodies. As of October 2021, Box Rec ranks Chagaev as the seventh greatest Asian fighter of all time, pound for pound. He was ranked in the world's top 10 heavyweights by BoxRec from 2004 to 2013, reaching a career high ranking of third from 2005 to 2007, and as a top 10 heavyweight or contender by The Ring magazine at the conclusion of each year between 2006 and 2015.
Chagaev is one of a few professional boxers to resume his amateur boxing career after a few professional bouts in 1997. He was reinstated as an amateur by the AIBA the following year as his professional bouts were declared exhibitions. As an amateur, Chagaev won gold medals at the 2001 World Championships and 1999 Asian Championships, in the heavyweight and super-heavyweight divisions respectively.
