Joseph M'Bouroukounda

Joseph M'Bouroukounda (7 September 1938 – 25 September 2017) was a Gabonese boxer. He competed for Gabon at the 1972 Summer Olympics in the men's featherweight event, becoming the first Gabonese Olympian. He was also a bronze medalist at the 1965 All-Africa Games. After his competitive career, he served as a coach.

Biography Joseph "Joe" M'Bouroukounda was born on 7 September 1938 to an ethnic Shira Christian family in the village of Fernand-Vaz, French Equatorial Africa (in present-day Ogooué-Maritime Province). At age eight, he was frequently bullied by his classmates at the Fernand-Vaz primary school, in part because he only spoke the Gisir language, not French. In hopes of being respected, he decided to increase his size and gain more strength by lifting weights. Gabonese media website Info241 later described this achievement as an "unexpected miracle at a time when Gabon still had few, if any, high-quality professional boxing facilities". He was celebrated upon his return home by fans, but received no attention from the government, which had, after M'ba's death, prioritized infrastructure and politics over sport. Disliking the government's lack of support for sports, he retired from boxing soon after but remained active in the sport as a coach, establishing his own club. He was a coach for the national team and also served as the president of the Gabonese Boxing Federation from 1975 to 1978 and in 1985. Outside of sport, he worked as an art teacher in Libreville until his retirement.

M'Bouroukounda was married and had 17 children. His grand-nephew, Yannick Mitoumba, represented Gabon at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. In his last years, M'Bouroukounda suffered from paralysis, went blind, and his memory deteriorated. He died in Libreville on 25 September 2017, at the age of 79. After his death, he was described in the Gabon Review as "the greatest Gabonese boxer of all time".