Gennady Shatkov

A native of Leningrad as it was then called, Gennady Shatkov’s breakthrough year was 1954 when he reached the final of the Soviet Championships and made his debut in international competition as he won his bout in the USSR-Hungary match in Budapest. The following year he became Soviet champion and travelled to West Berlin to claim the European Championship title at Middleweight defeating Olympic medallist Stig Sjölin in the final. Shatkov defended his Soviet title in 1956 and set out to Melbourne as one of the favourites for the title. He duly won the gold medal with knockout victories in both semi-final and final and boxed less than six rounds in the tournament. After a disappointing 1957 he recovered to become Soviet champion in 1958 and regain the European Championship title the following year.

His attempt to add an Olympic title at light-heavyweight to his collection ended at the fists of one Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., the future Muhammad Ali, in the second series of bouts and he afterwards retired from the boxing arena.

He graduated from Leningrad State University in 1962 with a degree in Judicial Studies and joined the university faculty. In 1969 he suffered the first of a series of strokes but although it took him five years to fully recover from the first stroke he went on to write forty scientific papers and three books.