Tony could have won the olympics that year, he was the best amateur boxer in his weight, regardless of how the qualifiers arranged.
Here’s the crazy story from wiki:-
Since 1979 Tony Tucker anticipated participating in the Moscow Olympics.
[5][6] Tucker was an alternate for the United States Olympic Team for the
1980 Summer Olympics (Lee Roy Murphy qualified as the prime.) President
Jimmy Carter ordered to
boycott the Olympics, which led the U.S. Team to cancel its participation in the Olympics, instead it embarked on a series of
exhibitions in Europe. On March 14, 1980, en route to
Poland, their plane
Polish Airlines IL-62 crashed near Warsaw, with the U.S. boxing team aboard, consisting of 22 boxers, there were no survivors. Several people, including Tony Tucker, missed the flight and stayed in the United States due to various reasons, in Tucker's case an injury sustained just prior to the accident. At that point Tucker became religious, believing that God spared his life for a purpose, in order for him to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Shortly thereafter Tucker turned pro.