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ONLY ONE

SURE WINNER!

NO 77 17kg

AND NOW..

By CHAS. COSTER

Melbourne

A

CCORDING to my calculations these words will appear

in print about a fortnight before the Melbourne Olympiad takes place. . . but with fascinating problems luring me on, I am already gazing into my favorite crystal in an effort to foresee some of the things that may happen there.

Accident, injury, or unexpected illness can always cause big upsets as we know only too well, but bearing these things in mind I have come to the conclusion that it is only possible to predict ONE certain winner in all the seven weight-lifting categories . . . I am thinking of the great Paul Anderson.

Heaven forbid that the worst should happen-but Paul could rise from a sick-bed and hold on to his world heavyweight title by just making three single lifts . . . so great is the 'margin' that exists between himself and the rest of the world's best.

Russia's powerful little featherweight Saksonov made this 292 lb. clean and jerk at the Helsinki Olympic Games. He also cleaned (twice) 308 lbs.. but failed to hold the jerk overhead. Since then he has gone up to the 148 lb. class.

The great Egyptian lightweight Ibrahim Shams won the 148 lb. crown at the London Olympic Games (1948). Second was Attia Hamouda, Egypt, and third, Jim Halliday, of England. Sham's great clean and jerk of 338 lbs. at a bodyweight of 142 lbs., is still, after 17 long years, the world record in his class!

Tommy Kono first appeared as a lightweight (148 lbs.) at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, and made a world record snatch of 259 lbs. His cleans with 341 lbs. were sensational, and twice in his career he has posted 842 lb. totals. He has since done over 930 as a middleweight and 977 as a lightheavy.

STRENGTH AND HEALTH

Even if fifty pounds were sliced off each of his lifts by some catastrophe, the result would almost certainly be the same. For Paul Anderson, as the Russians have so generously acknowledged, is "One of the Wonders of Nature". 'Forecasting' weight-lifting results is a tricky pastime for anyone to indulge. . . but there are some interesting facts available that may slake our appetite for news a little while waiting for the big contests to take place.

For instance: the Russian Heavyweight Medevedev actually elevated a Press of 347 lbs. during the European Championships held in June this year, but the lift caused a rumpus, and the jury disallowed the lift.

At 250 lbs. bodyweight, however, the Russian athlete earns our respect, for he made 1,023 lbs., and his best total to date is 1,047 pounds. . . no mean performance.

With only 7 entries allowed each country-but with at least a dozen star lifters to choose from-the final U. S. choice is going to be difficult.

If a 'dual' entry is made in the Heavyweight divisionthe U.S.A. should take the first two places, as usual. This class will cause less 'worry' than any of the others . . . for Bradford has the type of power that can rise to great heights.

For many years now the United States has had ample 'reserves' with which to swamp the heavyweight division. But an altogether different picture is seen if we switch from the massive mastodons to the mighty midgets.

Chuck Vinci, greatest 123 lb. Bantam the Americans have ever produced, will be a lone wolf entry and carrying an awful lot of responsibility on his diminutive shoulders when he faces Vladimir Stogov at Melbourne and anything could happen, with the struggle reaching such terrific proportions that the encounter is likely to be remembered for a long time to come.

These two lifters hold all four records between them, but there are numerous other Bantams in the world capable of reaching the 700-lb. mark; mainly Russians, whilst certain other nationalities show brilliant ability on lifts like the Clean & Jerk. So individual are isolated feats by far-flung performers may astonish the world in more than one category.

At Munich last year Korean Yo-In-Ho successfully C&Jerked 292 lbs. twice. More recently, on July 18th the 20-yr.-old Chinese Bantam Chen-Tsin-Kai C&Jerked 2932 lbs. at Hong Kong and Peiping. So it looks as though the (Continued on page 18)

DECEMBER, 1956

Vorobyev, of Russia, only made one successful jerk at the 1952 Olympics, the one shown here. He missed 374 by a narrow margin and only got three successful lifts in nine tries! He has become much steadier since to our sorrow!

152

Norb Schemansky jerked 393 at Helsinki to make a 980, total to win the 198 lb. class handily. He still holds the record in this class with 399/2 bs. He recently underwent a successful back operation, and may resume lifting soon.

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