Amsterdam, Sept 13: Ben Bril, a 12-time Dutch boxing champion who competed in the 1928 Olympics as a 15-year-old, has died at 91. Bril died Thursday at the Beth Shalom Retirement Home in Amsterdam, the director of the home said.
Bril won the first of his Dutch championships in 1928 and finished fifth in the flyweight class in the Amsterdam Olympics that same year.
He was barred from the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932 by the Dutch Olympic Committee because the secretary was a member of the Dutch Nazi Party, and Bril boycotted the 1936 games in Berlin. He deported to Germany during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, and he and his wife survived the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen.
Bril was also a referee after the war, and oversaw Olympic matches of Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Teofilo Stevenson, among others. "He was not an easy boss, but in his craft as a referee, he was sublime," said Rinus Schulaen, a longtime friend and referee trained by Bril.
"People who saw him fight said he used to step into the ring with his hair combed neatly to one side, and that he always came out the same way -- untouched," Schulaen said.
Bril is survived by a son. Bureau Report