Valeri DVOINIKOV

Valeriy Dvoinikov took up sambo (a Soviet wrestling style similar to judo) in 1965. A half-middleweight, Dvoinikov was under the shadow of another great Soviet half-middleweight judoka Vladimir Nevzorov and thus he won his most prestigious international award - the 1976 Olympic silver – in middleweight. Aside from his Olympic silver, Dvoinikov won the World Championships half-middleweight silver behind Nevzorov, the 1976 European half-middleweight title, in Nevzorov's absence, and the European Championships half-middleweight silvers in 1974 and 1975 and bronze in 1971. Domestically, Dvoinikov won only one Soviet title, the half-middleweight in 1974. Dvoinikov retired from competition in 1980 after he was not selected for the Soviet 1980 Olympic team and then worked as a judo coach. From 1980-83 and 1988-90 he was coach of the Ukrainian SSR judo team. From 1984-88 he was head coach of the Algerian national judo team, from 1990-92 he was head coach of the Belgian national judo team and from 1992-94 he was head coach of the Portuguese national judo team. He later settled in Liège, Belgium.