Vladimir SAFRONOV

On the evening of 1 December 1956, the featherweight Vladimir Safronov surprised the World by becoming the first Soviet boxer to win an Olympic gold. Before the Olympic Games, Safronov was virtually unknown, his only achievement being a bronze medal at the 1954 Russian SFSR Championships. In 1956 Safronov reached the final of the Soviet Olympic trials as a featherweight, but lost there to Aleksandr Zasukhin who was the best Soviet featherweight boxer of the 1950s. Safronov earned his spot on the Soviet Olympic team only a week before the Games, when Zasukhin was injured. After the Olympics, Safronov won the 1958 World Army Championships and won a bronze at the 1957 European Championships, losing to the eventual champion Bulgarian Dimitar Stoilov in the semi-final. Safronov also competed at the 1959 European Championships, losing his second round bout to East German Wolfgang Behrendt. Domestically, Safronov won the Soviet titles in 1958 and 1962 and took silver in 1963. In 1963 Safronov graduated from the Moscow Art Polygraph Institute and retired from boxing with a record of 294 wins out of 316 bouts. After retiring from sports, until his untimely death from heart attack on the last days of 1979, Safronov worked as an art editor of the publishing house “Fizkultura i sport”, which was the main sports literature publisher in the Soviet Union, publishing over 15 monthly sports magazines and over 50 books about sports in a year at the 1960s and 1970s.