Oliva had a successful amateur career and won 93 of his 96 fights winning the Italian, European and Olympic titles.

Oliva was beaten by Soviet boxer Serik Konakbayev in the final of the Cologne championship and stated that his fight against Konakbaev was the hardest of his career.

Following two years of winning European title Oliva competed in the blue vest of Italy at the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were held in Moscow, USSR.

In his second contest he stopped Syrian Farez Halabi in the third round and beat Yugoslavian Ace Rusevski in the quarter-final.

This time Oliva reversed the result by beating Konakbaev in front of his home crowd to take the gold medal and win the Val Barker Trophy for being "Outstanding Boxer" at the 1980 Olympics.

After a two-year rest, Oliva came back and went on to win his next 9 fights, setting up a shot at WBC welterweight title holder James McGirt in 1992.