Valery Shary: National Championships in Kiev (1978)
History in Color:
April 23, 1978, Kiev, Ukraine – Olympic champion Valery Shary of Minsk, Belarus competes in the snatch program in the 82.5kg class at the 1978 USSR Championships in Kiev.
By the end of the competition, Valery Shary won a gold medal with a 362.5kg (162.5+200) total. It was the last tournament where Shary competed in the light heavyweight. In December 1978, he won the USSR Cup in the 90kg weight class and began to prepare for the upcoming 1980 Summer Olympics as a middle heavyweight.
Valery Shary (born in 1947) was a 2x Olympian of Team USSR. He competed in the light heavyweight class at the Summer Olympics in Munich (1972) and in Montreal (1976) and became an Olympic champion in 1976.
Shary was a 2x World champion (1975, 1976) and a 2x European champion (1975, 1976). On the national level he was 4x USSR champion (1975, 1977, 1978, 1979), 2x USSR Spartakiade champion (1975, 1979), 3x USSR Cup winner (1971, 1978, 1979).
Valery Shary was a member of Club 500 with a 527.5kg total (178+155+195) set in Moscow on May 15, 1972. With a press lift out of Olympic weightlifting after 1972, this total stays as an eternal record in this sport.
His personal best totals were 367.5kg (162.5 + 205) in 82.5kg (February 1976) and 392.5kg (172.5+220) in the 90kg class (September 1980)
Valery Shary authored 13 world records.