Michel Broillet (Switzerland)
History in Color:
Michel Broillet (b. 1944) of Switzerland was one of the top Olympic weightlifters the 1970s.
Michel Broillet represented his country at the 1976 Summer Olympics. He also won bronze at the World Championships in 1977 and at the European Championships in 1977 and 1978. At the 1977 World and European Championships in Stuttgart, Broillet won a gold medal in the snatch (170kg) in the newly created sub heavyweight class.
With all these remarkable achievements, Michel Broillet was truly not a professional athlete. He actually had a day time job and trained for about 8-10 hours per… week in the after hours. In addition to international level Olympic weightlifting, Michel Broillet competed in the bodybuilding tournaments which was unthinkable in the times of highly specialized elite level sports.
On May 7, 1977, Michel Broillet snatched 170.5kg in the sub heavyweight and reached out for eternity. It was a world record!
Ironicaly, the record lived for 24 hours. The next day, Anatoly Kozlov of Russia set a new world record in the snatch for the 100kg weight class.