Roman RURUA

Georgian Roman Rurua wrestled in the Greco-Roman class throughout his career, first as a featherweight and, from 1970, as a lightweight. Rurua came to prominence in 1963, when he won his first Soviet Greco-Roman featherweight title, repeating this victory in 1964. This earned him a place on the 1964 Olympic team, where he won featherweight silver. Starting in 1966, Rurua was not defeated in international competition for five years. He won World Championships in Greco-Roman featherweight in 1966-67 and 1969, and in 1970 Greco-Roman lightweight. In 1968 he won Greco-Roman featherweight gold at the Olympics. Rurua also competed at the 1971 World Championships, but injured his back in the fifth round and placed only sixth. Domestically, in addition to his 1963 and 1964 titles, Rurua won four more Soviet titles: in 1965 and 1967 in featherweight and in 1970 and 1971 in lightweight. In 1972 Rurua finished his sporting career, graduating from Georgian Polytechnic Institute with an engineering degree, and started to work as an engineer. In 1988 he was the founding member of the political organization Sporting Georgia and, from 1999-2003, was a member of Georgian Parliament. He was also vice-president of the Georgian Wresting Federation. Rurua was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.