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Laszlo Papp, the Hungarian boxer who died on Thursday aged 77, was the first fighter to win gold medals at three successive Olympics; and he might have achieved even greater success as a professional if Hungary's Communist government had not refused him permission to fight for a world title in 1965.

He was summoned home from Vienna for consultations, then had his passport revoked. The Hungarian government announced that boxing for financial gain was "incompatible with socialist principles"; ordinary Hungarians were led to believe that Janos Kadar, the Communist leader, had told Papp that if he had proceeded with the fight it would take 300 years for a worker to earn what he would make in 30 minutes.

But at 39 he was showing signs of ageing, and some in the West suspected that the Hungarians feared that his reputation would be destroyed if he met the reigning world middleweight champion Joey Giardello.

Papp, who held the European middleweight title at the time, maintained that he had a good chance of winning the world crown, since he had defeated others who had defeated Giardello; and in later years, he described the lost opportunity as "my one big regret in life".

Soon after being recalled, Papp retired undefeated, having won 27 fights, 15 of them by knockout, and drawn two. The Daily Telegraph's Donald Saunders thought that, at his best, Papp could have beaten all the middleweight champions of the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, except the great Sugar Ray Robinson.

After the fall of Communism, the World Boxing Council named Papp an honorary world champion in 1989; two years later it designated him the world's best amateur and professional fighter of all time. The former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling said that he considered Papp the best and most sportsmanlike boxer in history.

Laszlo Papp was born in a tough, working-class district of Budapest on March 25 1926. Having inherited a love of boxing from his father, in his early years Laszlo worked as a railway clerk. He was initially keen on football, but switched sports after watching an American film about boxing. At 22 "Papplaci" ("Little Papp", as he was known in Hungary) outpointed Britain's John Wright to claim his first Olympic gold in London in 1948.

Normally such a success at middleweight level would have attracted little comment, even if Papp stood out with his Clark Gable moustache. But his trainer, Zsigmond Adler, had promised to jump fully clothed into a swimming pool at Wembley if the gold medal went to Hungary, and did just that.

Four years later Papp overcame South Africa's Theunis van Schalkwyk at the Helsinki Games as a light heavyweight. Later this prompted speculation about what might have happened had he not dropped a division, and had met the future professional world heavyweight Floyd Patterson at middleweight.

While Patterson went off to earn a fortune as a professional, Papp completed his hat-trick by outpointing the Puerto Rican José Torres, a future world light heavyweight champion, at the Melbourne Games in 1956. Unlike other Hungarians, Papp declined to take the opportunity to defect after the recent uprising.

Papp always claimed that he would have enjoyed further success at the Rome Games of 1960, "but I wanted to make some money". When he turned professional in 1957, he had lost just 12 fights out of 300 as an amateur.

His reward was to become the first fighter from the Soviet bloc to be allowed to fight for money. Although professional boxing continued to be outlawed in Hungary, and Papp never fought there, he set up camp in Vienna, though he occasionally had to go to Paris to find sparring partners.

He steadily worked his way up the rankings by beating a stream of contenders, including the formidable Peter Muller and "Tiger" Jones. When he defeated George Aldridge in Vienna, the fight had to be stopped in the 15th round; Lady Summerskill, the Labour peer, complained in the House of Lords about the BBC broadcasting "a beastly and degrading display".

A skilful, hard-punching southpaw who possessed a strong left hook, Papp was nevertheless dogged by brittle bones and hand injuries, which periodically kept him out of the ring. His greatest asset was considered the two-fisted attack he would rain on a retreating opponent. Papp was already 36 when he knocked out Chris Christensen of Denmark in the seventh round to seize the European middleweight crown.

Another Briton, Liverpool's Harry Scott, came tantalisingly close to ending Papp's unbeaten run. During the pair's non-title clash at Vienna in 1964, Papp was horrendously cut but, to Scott's mounting astonishment, was allowed to fight on.

The Englishman, who as the visiting fighter had resigned himself to receiving a draw at worst, instead lost on a points decision. Scott later recounted how Papp's cornermen "used every trick in the book" to stem the incessant flow of blood.

Papp defended his European crown six times, his final triumph coming on points against Coventry's Mick Leahy on October 9 1964, who was the sole opponent to take him to a full 15 rounds; the wisdom of challenging Giardello for the world crown was looking increasingly questionable.

Papp retained a high-profile in his homeland, remaining close to his working-class roots and coaching the Hungarian national boxing team from 1971 until 1992. After Hungary returned to democracy in the early 1990s, he ran a boxing school.

He is survived by his wife and a son.