After the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Pete Rademacher, the American heavyweight gold medallist, fought for the world title in his first contest as a professional and even knocked down the champion, Floyd Patterson, before losing in the sixth round.

Another big name from those Games was Jose Torres, a silver medallist who would win a light-heavyweight world title before becoming President of the World Boxing Organization, and biographer of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson.

Dick McTaggart, from Dundee, the lightweight Olympic champion in Melbourne and winner of the trophy for the most stylish boxer, also won a title two years later - as an amateur, in the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.

The Scot was earning only £8 a week as a labourer but professional boxing was not for him.

"I still have a video recording of my first round win in Cardiff, against an Australian," said McTaggart, who turned 85 in 2020.

It was against John Leckie and it was no surprise that the Scot won easily.

"I had fought 250 times by then," he said.

McTaggart went to the Olympics again and won a bronze in 1960, the year when Cassius Clay won gold before later changing his name to Ali.

He again said "no" to offers to join them in turning professional, and was back at the Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia in 1962.

It was three or four days each way to get to Perth and back, with several refuelling stops, and on the way out "there was nothing to do but eat", he said.

That meant McTaggart and his team-mates arrived several pounds overweight.

They trained hard to trim back down, and McTaggart should have won a second gold, and thereby become the first man to win Commonwealth gold at different weights.

He lost, though, in one of the most controversial decisions in Games history.

McTaggart's opponent in the final was Clement "Isaac" Quartey, who had become Ghana's first ever Olympic medallist in Rome with a light welterweight silver.

His father had five wives and 27 children and one of them, Ike, born in 1969, would become a world champion many years later.

McTaggart appeared to have won every round but the verdict was given to Quartey.

It came as such a shock to Quartey that he fainted.

"He fell down in front of me, and stayed down," said McTaggart.

"I nearly fainted myself."

According to one report, Quartey was unconscious for five minutes.

Did McTaggart make a protest?

"No, but the Scottish Association did, and one of the officials was sacked," he said.

"It was a terrible decision but that's how it goes sometimes.

"There were fights I lost that I thought I'd won, and there were times when it worked the other way. That was a really bad one, though."

McTaggart remained amateur until he retired in 1965, by when he had become an oil technician for Rolls Royce. 

"I didn't like the idea of 25 per cent for him, and 15 per cent for him and so on. I boxed for fun, for laughs," he said.

"Professional boxing is all work and wages, no fun. I enjoyed the freedom to have the odd drink and a fag when I felt like it."

McTaggart stayed with the sport as a coach, for Britain in the Olympics and Scotland in the Commonwealth Games.

"I've been all over the world, had a great time," he said.

Between 1956 and 1965, McTaggart, from a family of boxers, won five national titles.

He fought 634 times, winning 610. A sports centre in Dundee is named after him.

"He was the best amateur I ever saw," said Harry Carpenter, the legendary "voice of boxing" on the BBC.