Yury Zaytsev

Although born in the distant Russian Far East island of Sakhalin, Yury Zaytsev grew up in Kazakhstan, where his family moved when he was eight. Zaytsev took up weightlifting in 1968 and was selected to the Soviet national team in 1974. During his career Zaytsev was the 1976 Olympic heavyweight champion, the 1976 and 1978 World Champion, took silver at the 1977 and bronze at the 1974 World Championships and 1978 and was 1979 European Champion, taking silver at the 1976 and 1977 European Championships. Zaytsev won his only Soviet title in 1976, while taking silver in 1975 and 1977 and bronze in 1979. Zaytsev also won the Soviet Cup in 1974, 1976, 1977 and 1979. During his career Zaytsev set three heavyweight world records, two in the clean & jerk, and one in the total. Zaytsev retired from sports after he was not selected for the 1980 Soviet Olympic team and started to work as a weightlifting coach in Ukraine, where he had moved after the 1976 Olympics, first in Odesa and later in Dnipropetrovsk. After the fall of the Soviet Union Zaytsev worked as a pig farmer and taxi driver.