Yurik Sarkisyan (USSR/Armenia/Australia)

Happy Birthday to Legendary Armenian weightlifter Yurik Sarkisyan!

On the History in Color photo, Yurik Sarkisyan of Echmiadzin, Armenia competes in the snatch program of the 1989 Frienship Cup in Tallinn, Estonia.

Yurik Sarkisyan (b. 1961) had a long and distinguished career in Olympic weightlifting.

At 18, he won a silver medal for Team CCCP in the bantamweight at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. At 35, he took the 7th place for Australia in the bantamweight at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta!

At the USSR Championships, Yurik Sarkisyan won 3 gold (1983, 1984, 1987) and 2 silver (1982, 1986) medals. He also won the 1983 Spartakiade and 2 USSR Cups (1979, 1980).

While competing for the Soviet national team at the World Championships, Yurik won 2 gold (1982, 1983), 4 silver (1980, 1985, 1987, 1991) and 1 bronze (1981) medals. At the European championships, Yurik won 2 gold (1982, 1983) and 6 silver (1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1991) medals.

For Team Armenia, Yurik won a bronze World medal in the featherweight in 1993

For Team Australia, he won a gold (2002) and a silver (1998) medals at the Commonwealth Games.

Sarkisyan set 12 world records in his career – 1 in snatch, 7 in cj and 4 in total.