On Thursday, a Thai court sentenced the country’s first Olympic gold medalist to just over three years in prison for abducting and attempting to rape a girl. Somluck Kamsing, 52, became a national hero after winning featherweight boxing gold in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The Khon Kaen provincial court convicted Somluck of child abduction, molestation, and attempted rape before granted him an appeal and bail.
Somluck applied for bail, which the court granted at 300,000 baht ($9,000) while he pursued his appeal. The court ruled that he pay $5,000 in damages. In December 2023, a 17-year-old girl filed a complaint against Somluck, alleging he assaulted her in a hotel in Khon Kaen, a city in the kingdom’s northeast. Somluck, who won boxing titles at the 1994 and 1998 Asian Games in Hiroshima and Bangkok, disputed the charges.
Police corroborated local media accounts that Somluck Kamsing met the adolescent at a bar and stayed until 3:00 a.m. before the incident. His post-boxing career has been turbulent, with a failing gas station business and a divorce. He has occasionally picked up the gloves for demonstration contests, but he is now more recognised as a character actor in numerous Thai television shows.
A Dark Chapter in Sports
Somluck Kamsing became the first Thai athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics when he won the men’s Featherweight category in 1996, defeating Ramaz Paliani and Serafim Todorov, among others. He also competed in the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics but did not win any medals. Somluck finished second at the first AIBA Asian 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Guangzhou, China.
In the final, he lost against Kim Song-Guk of North Korea. Having made it to the final, he qualified for the Athens Games. A court statement said, “For attempted rape by force and taking a person over the age of 15 but not over 18 for indecency, the first defendant’s actions constitute a single offense that violates multiple laws.”
