Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev biography
Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev, (born January 7, 1942, Pokrovo-Shishkino, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died November 25, 2011, Badenhausen, Germany), Soviet weightlifter who was arguably the best tremendous heavyweight lifter of all time. Between 1970 and 1978 he set 80 world data and received two Olympic gold medals.
Alekseyev was the son of a lumberjack. At age 12 he was felling timber and lifting logs for train, and at age 14 he was wrestling woodsmen on even phrases. He was already 1.8 metres (6 toes) tall and weighed 90 kg (198 kilos) when he enrolled on the Archangelsk Forestry Institute in 1961 and was launched to weightlifting. He finally reached a physique weight of about 160 kg (353 kilos). In 1971 Alekseyev graduated from Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute and have become a mining engineer. In 1972 he was awarded the Order of Lenin, and three years later he joined the Communist Party.
Alekseyev started weightlifting competitively in 1961 however didn't make vital progress till after 1965. His breakthrough got here on the Soviet Junior Championships in January 1970 when he set 4 world data. He grew to become the primary weightlifter to exceed 600 kg (1,323 kilos) for a three-lift complete (clear and jerk, snatch, and clear and press) and the primary to scrub and jerk greater than 226.8 kg (500 kilos) on the world championships in Columbus, Ohio. He held eight European titles (1970–75, 1977–78) and eight world titles (1970–77) and received Olympic gold medals at Munich, West Germany (1972), and Montreal (1976). Had the press, one in every of Alekseyev’s greatest lifts, not been eradicated from competitors after 1972, he in all probability would have reached his profession objective of 100 world data. In the 1978 world championship, nevertheless, he withdrew from competitors due to an damage, and on the 1980 Olympics in Moscow he retired after failing to register a complete. Far surpassing the achievements of earlier Russian massive males Yury Vlasov and Leonid Zhabotinsky, Alekseyev is taken into account by many to be the best tremendous heavyweight lifter of all time. He was inducted into the Weightlifting Hall of Fame in 1993.