Timir Pinegin

As a youth, Timir Pinegin was a competent Alpine skier who even belonged to the Soviet national team in 1947. Pinegin took up yachting during the World War II and rose to be one of the top Soviet competitive sailors in 1953, when he teamed up with Fyodor Shutkov. Sailing in the Star class, Pinegin and Shutkov won Olympic gold in 1960 and were European champions in 1964. They also won two bronzes at the European Championships (1961, 1966).

Domestically, they won 13 Soviet Star titles (1953-62, 1964-65, 1969) and they won the Baltic Regatta eight times (1958, 1959, 1961-65 and 1967). After Shutkov retired from sailing in 1969, Pinegin teamed up with Rais Galimov and Valentin Zamotaykin and, by then sailing in the Soling class, won silver at the 1971 European Championships, were the Soviet Soling champions in 1970, 1972 and 1973 and won the Baltic Regatta in 1970.

After competing in five Olympic Games, Pinegin retired from sports in 1973 and later worked as a sailing coach, official and was an international judge of sailing. In 1973 he was briefly the head coach of the Soviet national sailing team and also acted as a judge in many international tournaments, including the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. In the 1990s, he founded the sailing school named Sailing Academy in Moscow and was also the president of the Sailing Culture Renaissance Foundation.