Team USA: On the Way To Berlin (1936)
July 1936 – U.S. weightlifters, coaches and administrators are about ready to travel to Europe for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin (left to right):
Front row:
Mark Berry (Head Coach), John Grimek (Heavyweight, 9th), Bill Good (Light Heavyweight, 7th), Dave Mayor (Heavyweight, 12th), Joe Miller (Light Heavyweight, 9th), Stanley Kratkowski (Middleweight, 5th), Dietrich Wortmann (AAU national weightlifting chairman)
Top row:
Bob Mitchell (Lightweight, 8th), Tony Terlazzo (Featherweight, 1st/Gold), John Terry (Featherweight, 7th), John Terpak (Lightweight, 5th), Walter Good (Middleweight, 14th)
Note: Including athletes’ weight class and final placings at the 1936 Summer Olympics tournament.
Obviously, the heroic performance of Jesse Owens in Berlin was one of the greatest moments of the Olympics in Berlin and in the history of sports overall. Other U.S. athletes demonstrated superb results in 1936 too.
One of them was a weightlifter Tony Terlazzo who became the first 1936 Olympic champion in weightlifting in Berlin. Terlazzo won with the 312.5kg total in the 60kg class.
The weightlifting contests took place in the Deutschlandhalle in front of over 8,000 fans. Team USA was just beginning its path to success in weightlifting and gold medal won by Tony Terlazzo was a huge boost for upcoming development of world class athletes.
Overall, in the unofficial team competition between the weightlifting countries, Team USA took the third place with Egypt as No.1 and Germany as No.2.
After the tournament, the International Weightlifting Federation published the Top 5 Best athletes list.
Khadr El Touni of Egypt was announced as top lifter .
25-year old Tony Terlazzo of Team USA became an overall No. 2 in the World!