David Rigert: The Last Tournament
History in Color:
December 20, 1981, Donetsk, Ukraine – The athletes of the 100kg class are lined up for the introduction ceremony at the 1981 USSR Cup in Donetsk, Ukraine (left to right):
Akhmad Achichaev (Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine), Gennady Klimenchukov (Voroshilovgrad, Ukraine), Pavel Syrchin (Kransnokamsk, Russia), David Rigert (Shakhty, Russia)
David Rigert was 34 at the time. The 1981 USSR Cup in Donetsk happened to be his last tournament. A year after the 1980 Summer Olympics, one of Olympic weightlifting greats of all time, David Rigert retired from competing as an athlete.
The 100kg class was won by 18-year old Yury Zakharevich, the new rising star of the Soviet weightlifting.