Vasily Alexeev: Big in London (1974)
History in Color:
London, Great Britain, November 1974 – Legendary Soviet super heavyweight Vasily Alexeev is being caught on camera while showing a prospective of power and strength in front of the Tower Bridge during a sightseeing tour of London.
Alexeev arrived to London for the Strongest Man in the World invitational tournament held at Crystal Palace in London on November 27, 1974 . Besides Alexeev, the list of invited competitors included Gerd Bonk, Jurgen Heuser (both East Germany), Petr Pavlasek (Czechoslovakia), Aslanbek Yenaldiev, Yury Zaytsev (both USSR).
In the last lift of the tournament, Vasily Alexeev clean-and-jerked 242.5kg and set a new world record of the time. This record can be seen on the video footage below. It was one of 80 world records that Vasily Alexeev set in his remarkable career in Olympic weightlifting.