Team USA In York, PA (1952)
This enhanced team photo portrays the U.S. Olympic weightlifters in York, PA before they went to represent the country at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki (left to right): John Davis (90kg+, gold medal),...
This enhanced team photo portrays the U.S. Olympic weightlifters in York, PA before they went to represent the country at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki (left to right): John Davis (90kg+, gold medal),...
Gennady Ivanchenko is getting ready for lifting at the 1970 World Championship in Columbus, OH. Ivanchenko was in his prime. He won the World title in Columbus and literally stole the show. Many North...
This photo came from the personal archives of George Popov. We have enhanced it for the Lift Up project about the history of Olympic weightlifting. The photo shows how Team CCCP candidates are training...
Legendary Olympic weightlifter Vasily Alexeev was obviously the “King of the Clean and-Jerk Lift”. Nobody really knew how much he could have cj’d in his times. I suspect it was more than his 256kg...
As an athlete, Medvedev was a member of the national Soviet team for 16 years. Medvedev didn’t have impressive promising talent for the weightlifting. It was his work ethics and ability to focus on...
Isaac Berger (b. 1936) was one of the strongest featherweight lifters in the 1950’s and 1960’s. His accomplishments exceed those of any other past or present. During the late 1950’s, no lifter in this...
Yanko Rusev (b.1958) was a graduate of the Bulgarian weightlifting school that challenged the Soviet team to dominate Olympic weightlifting in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. Overall, while most of the time the Soviets...
David Rigert was and remains an absolutely “cult figure” for many generations of the fans of the Iron Game. David Rigert (b. 1947) was one of the leading athletes in a legendary Soviet team...
The enhanced archival photo depicts the coach of Team Bulgaria Ivan Abadzhiev doing a high pull of 300kg (660 lbs) in the training camp. Abadzhiev is barefeet. The boy at the volleyball court behind...
Riga, Latvia, 1963 – Alexander Dynnikov is performing a cj lift of 121.5kg and breaks a record of Latvia in the 56kg weight class. The original black-and-white photo came to me from the personal...