Giuseppe Tonani was best known as a weightlifter, winning gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics in the heavyweight class, and placing seventh in 1928 at Amsterdam. He also competed for Italy in the tug-of-war at the 1920 Antwerpen Olympics. Tonani was an eight-time Italian weightlifting champion, winning his last title at 47-years-old.
Tonani was a registered member of the Associazione Proletaria di Educazione Fisica (APEF), also known as “La fucina dei muscoli rossi” (The forge of the red muscles), and he was a proletarian with his ideas, in life, and in his habits. Tonani received the gold medal of CONI (Italian Olympic committee), a gold medal from the Italian Sport Merit, and was named an honorary member of the Italian Weightlifting Federation. In his later years he managed a farm near Pavia in northern Italy.
Italy