Career Highlights: Lopez enters the 2012 Olympics games in London as the defending gold medalist, having beaten Russia’s Khasan Baroyev in 2008. Lopez - who represented Cuba as the country’s flagbearer during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing games - is a four-time world champion (2005, 2007, 2009-10) who had his bid for a third straight title end in the 2011 finals by Turkey’s Riza Kayaalp, likely his top competition for the gold medal in London. Lopez won the Pan American championship in February, his eighth title at that event. He is also the three-time defending Pan American Games champion, having added another gold medal in 2011. Lopez hasn’t finished outside the top three of a major international event he’s entered since 2004 - when he finished fifth at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, his first appearance at the games.