Gabriel Maestre
Gabriel Jose Maestre Perez is a welterweight boxer from Venezuela who competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
At the 2012 American Boxing Olympic Qualification Tournament, Gabriel Maestre finished 4th, losing 12–9 to Oscar Molina in the quarterfinals. This finish qualified Maestre for the 2012 Olympics. At the 2012 London Olympics he took fifth place, defeating Amin Ghasemipour and Siphiwe Lusizi before losing in the quarterfinals to the gold medalist, Serik Sapiyev.
At the 2013 World Championships, Gabriel Maestre lost in the semifinals to Arisnoidys Despaigne, taking bronze. He served as Venezuela's flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2013 Bolivarian Games.
In 2015, Gabriel Maestre defeated the reigning Olympic light welterweight champion, Roniel Iglesias, to win gold at the Pan American Games.
In the 2015 AMBC American Boxing Championships, Maestre took bronze, losing to Alberto Palmetta 2:1 in the semifinals, and qualified for the 2015 World Championships. Gabriel Maestre currently captains Venezuela's national boxing team and the Caciques de Venezuela team in World Series of Boxing.
Maestres considers the Cuban boxer Roniel Iglesias as his main rival and as a motivation to train harder. He spent two months at a training camp in Cuba to prepare for the 2016 Summer Olympics. At the Olympics he was eliminated in the third bout at the 2016 Olympics. Maestre is married and has three children.
