Waldemar BASZANOWSKI

Waldemar Baszanowski was one of the greatest lifters ever pound-for-pound. He was the first man to clean & jerk 2½ times his bodyweight. Baszanowski won gold medals in both 1964 and 1968 at the Olympics in the lightweight class and was also World Champion in 1961, 1964-65, and 1968-69. He also won five silver medals at the World Championships, and was a five-time European Champion (1961, 1965, 1968-69 ,1971). Baszanowski was a great technician who did very well in the quick lifts of snatch and clean & jerk. He set 24 world records, capped by his greatest day, 26 June 1964, when he broke the world overall record three times in the same competition. After his lifting career ended, he became a lecturer at the Academy of Physical Education in Poland and a coach, both home and abroad, coaching the Indonesian national team for several years. In 1999, Baszanowski became President of the European Weightlifting Federation, serving through 2007. Baszanowski won numerous awards, being named Polish Sportsperson of the Year in 1969, and he was elected to the International Weightlifting Hall of Fame in 1993. At the end of the 20th century, Baszanowski was voted the third greatest weightlifter of all-time in several polls, trailing Turkey's Naim Suleymanoğlu and Hungary's Imre Földi. In 1969, Baszanowski suffered tragedy, when his first wife, Anita, was killed in a solo car accident, in which he was driving with her and his son, who survived the accident.