Weightlifting in facts and figures

Weightlifting in the USSR in 1957 and 1958

M. L. Aptekar, Podolsk

English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1982 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1982), pp. 74–78: the text is paraphrased, not translated; data tables are given in full with English labels.

Lifts in kg; heavyweights’ bodyweight in brackets.

1957

• April: 60 years since the first All-Russian championship; all major events were dedicated to it. Over 20 trade-union councils, Dynamo, Spartak and the Armed Forces held championships with growing numbers and results.
• Moscow championship: Yuri Vlasov (22, Army) set his first USSR record, a 183 kg heavyweight jerk.
• Torpedo society championship, Tula: Leonid Zhabotinsky (19, fitter, Kharkov Tractor Works) won the engineering-industry event outright with a 392.5 kg total (120 + 117.5 + 155).
• All-Union miners’ championship: Aleksei Vakhonin (Kiselyovsk) made the bantamweight master norm for the first time, 305 kg.
• 32nd USSR Championship, Lviv (end of May): 197 lifters, 21 teams; 12 national and 5 world records beforehand, 11 USSR records (four above world records) at the event. Heavyweights (Vlasov absent): four-time champion Aleksei Medvedev and sailor Yevgeny Novikov, known as a presser, were level at 305 after two lifts; Medvedev set a USSR total record of 487.5, but Novikov jerked 185 and 187.5 (USSR record) to win.

Table 1. 32nd USSR Championship (individual and team), Lviv, May 1957

Team places: 1st Soviet Army, 2nd Soviet Army II, 3rd Spartak. * Digitised as “172 5” (Rudman) and “137„” (Novikov); the readings 172.5 and 137.5 follow from the totals.

• August, Moscow: 6th World Festival of Youth and Students — tournament 2–5 August, Dynamo hall, Tsvetnoi Boulevard; England, France, Egypt, Finland, Switzerland, DPR Korea, USSR.

Table 2. Winners of the tournament at the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow, 2–5 August 1957

• 3rd International Friendly Youth Games, straight after, Shakhtyor palace: 19 countries; world records — Minaev and Bushuev (totals) and Chen Jingkai of China (jerk).

Table 3. Winners of the 3rd International Friendly Youth Games, Moscow, August 1957

* Printed total 477.5 does not match the lifts (130 + 140 + 177.5 = 447.5) and would exceed the winner’s 470; probably a misprint for 447.5.

• Autumn: two national squads formed for the European and world championships.
• 33rd European Championship, Katowice (Poland), September: 43 lifters from 11 countries. USSR first in the team event, Poland and Czechoslovakia next.

Table 4. Champions of the 33rd European Championship, Katowice, September 1957

• 30th World Championship, Tehran (40th anniversary of the October Revolution): 76 lifters, 24 countries. Six Soviet champions of seven starters, Bogdanovsky silver; 14 USSR and 9 world records — never equalled since.

Table 5. Medallists of the 1957 World Championship, Tehran

Team places: 1st USSR, 2nd USA, 3rd Iran.

• Information bulletin: from 1957 the All-Union section and the Sports Committee issued a bulletin (250 copies): methods, news, results, world and USSR top-ten lists. Editor Vyacheslav Grigoryevich Maksimov (head of the committee’s weightlifting department); board A. Bozhko, G. Tennov, L. Mekhanik, E. Lopatin.
• Year total: 37 USSR and 24 world records.

1958

• Youth competition final, Rostov-on-Don, late February (age ≤ 23): 46 lifters; future national team members among the medallists: V. Marzagulov (56 kg, Kuibyshev), M. Medvedev (60 kg, Leningrad), S. Loptin (67.5 kg, Moscow), A. Zhgun (67.5 kg, Velikiye Luki), V. Lyakh (82.5 kg, Rostov-on-Don), E. Brovko (90 kg, Krivoi Rog), L. Zhabotinsky (heavyweight, Kharkov).
• 1st Moscow Prize tournament, 8–9 March: Luzhniki; Iran, USA, Finland, Poland, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia; only Humberto Selvetti (Argentina) missing, ill. Became a tradition.

Table 6. Winners of the 1st Moscow Prize tournament, Luzhniki Palace of Sports, 8–9 March 1958

• Individual USSR Championship, Stalino, mid-April: only Minaev, Bogdanovsky and Vorobyov kept their titles; places for the USA tour at stake. 12 USSR and 5 world records in four days; of 120 lifters 57 made the master norm, 22 scored zero, including A. Khalfin, Kh. Yagly-ogly, T. Lomakin and F. Osypa. New reserves for the national team: S. Ulyanov, A. Kurynov, V. Dvigun, M. Yagly-ogly, Yu. Vlasov, V. Timoshenko.

Table 7. Individual USSR Championship 1958, Stalino, April

* Digitised as “НО” and “147 4”; 110 and 147.5 follow from the total.

• USSR–USA matches, May (return of the US visit three years earlier; both teams half renewed): USSR won all three — Chicago 12 May, Detroit 15 May, New York 17 May — same line-ups; 5 world and 8 national records.

Table 8. USSR–USA matches 1958: bouts won (three matches)

• Summer: Dynamo 35th-anniversary spartakiad (Moscow), Armed Forces spartakiad (Kiev), 6th Summer Trade Union Spartakiad (Moscow), spartakiad of the Baltic republics and Belarus (Vilnius).
• World Championship with the European Championship, Stockholm, September: world titles only to the USSR and USA; all seven European titles to the USSR.

Table 9. Medallists of the 1958 World and European Championships, Stockholm, September

Team places: World Championship — 1st USSR, 2nd USA, 3rd Iran; European Championship — 1st USSR, 2nd Italy, 3rd Poland.

• December: USSR team championship, Gorky — 1st Armed Forces, 2nd Trud, 3rd Spartak.
• Year total: 51 USSR and 34 world records.