Ian Clyde

Who is Ian Clyde?

Ian Clyde is a retired boxer from Canada, who represented his native country at the 1976 Summer Olympics. There he was defeated in the quarterfinals of the men's flyweight division by Cuba's eventual silver medalist Ramón Duvalón. Clyde won a bronze medal at the 1979 Pan American Games. Ian Clyde has followed his career as a professional athlete to offer personal fitness boxing coaching and competitive boxing instruction to young athletes in Montreal.

Born on May 15, 1956 in Verdun, Ian was born with a disability that required him to wear leg braces in order for him to walk properly. Doctors were convinced that Ian would have little chance at ever being able to walk, let alone become an Olympic boxer. When Ian told them he was going be an Olympic boxer someday, they simply smiled and dismissed him.

He told me how his father had encouraged him to box as a means of physical therapy, never really believing that Ian would become a boxer someday.

The words that Ian spoke to me when I asked him about it, will stay with me forever. I asked him how he was able to overcome these huge obstacles in his life, he simply said, “I got tired of everyone thinking I was crazy and dismissing me when I said I would walk, I wanted to show them they were wrong, I knew if I tried hard enough, I could do anything I put my mind too.” He would say the very same about the Olympics, his life and his family.