Alfred SCHMIDT

As a youth, Alfred Schmidt competed in track & field athletics as a noted distance runner. He took up weightlifting in 1919 while serving in the Estonian Army, training under Alfred Neuland, and soon rose to be one of the top Estonian featherweight weightlifters. The high point of his career was the 1920 Olympics, where he won a silver medal as a featherweight. In addition to his Olympic silver, Schmidt also won bronze at the 1923 Baltic Championships and was the Estonian featherweight champion in 1922. During his career he set three world records, all in the one-hand clean & jerk. After finishing his sporting career in 1923, he worked as a sports official, having gotten his start at the 1922 Weightlifting World Championships where he did not participate as an athlete, but as an official, when he was disqualified for being slightly over the weight class limit. Schmidt was also active as a referee in wrestling. Later he was a board member of the weightlifting department of the Estonian Sports Union. In his later years, Schmidt became a noted trap shooter, was the general secretary of the Estonian Trap Shooting Federation, and acted as a trap shooting referee. After World War II, Schmidt worked for the utility “Tallinngaas.”