Yury Vlasov

Yury Petrovich Vlasov (; 5 December 1935 – 13 February 2021) was a Soviet and Russian heavyweight weightlifter, writer and politician. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in 1960 and a silver in 1964; at both games, he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union. During his career, Vlasov won four world titles and set 31 ratified world records. He retired in 1968 and became a prominent writer and later a politician. He was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and then of the Russian State Duma (1993) and took part in the 1996 Russian presidential election.

Early life and competitive career

Yury was born in Makeyevka, Ukrainian SSR, to the family of Pyotr Vlasov (1905–1953), a military journalist and Comintern agent, and Maria Danilovna Vlasova (née Lymar), a Kuban Cossacks. His father worked as the General Consul in Shanghai and then the Ambassador to Burma.

Yury studied at the Saratov Suvorov military school (1946–1953), then at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy in Moscow, from which he graduated with honors in 1959. In 1956, while studying at the academy he became interested in weightlifting, joined the Armed Forces sports society and soon became Master of Sport of the USSR (1957). He was noticed in 1958 when he finished third at the Soviet Union championships. Between 1959 and 1963 he won all the competitions he participated in, with a major success at the Rome 1960 Summer Olympics where he set three world records and became the first man to clean and jerk more than 200 kg (202.5). He was proclaimed the best sportsman of the 1960 Olympics and the "Strongest Man on the Planet". Going against the stereotypes attached to weightlifting, he was considered a nerdish intellectual in rim glasses.

At the 1964 Summer Olympics he finished second, after another Soviet weightlifter, Leonid Zhabotinsky. Vlasov was breaking world records at the 1964 Olympics and was aiming to retire from competitions with the gold medal. He was bitterly disappointed by the tactical tricks played by Zhabotinsky during the final clean-and-jerk event, which he considered dishonest – Zhabotinsky intentionally failed his second attempt, and talked and behaved as if he would not compete for the gold medal. In reality Zhabotinsky merely positioned himself behind Vlasov, who started the event first, and in his last attempt would order (and lift) any weight required to win the overall competition.

Although Vlasov announced his retirement after the 1964 Olympics, he resumed top-level training in 1966 for financial reasons. He set his last world record on 15 May 1967, by pressing 199 kg,

Weightlifting achievements

Olympic champion (1960); silver medalist in 1964; Four-time world champion (1959, 1961–1963); silver medalist in 1964; Six-time consecutive European champion (1959–1964); Set thirty four world records.

For his weightlifting victories Vlasov was awarded the Order of Lenin (1960) and Order of the Badge of Honour (1965). In the 1980s he returned to sport as a functionary – between 1985 and 1987 he was president of the Soviet Weightlifting Federation, and from 1987 to 1989 headed the Soviet Bodybuilding Federation. while his maximum senior weight was 136.4 kg at the 1964 Olympics.

Other books by Vlasov include: Себя преодолеть. — М.: Молодая гвардия, 1964. — 270 с. / Overcome Yourself Формула мужества. — М.: Знание, 1987. — 94 с. / The Formula for Courage Справедливость силы. — Л.: Лениздат, 1989. — 608 с. — / The Justice of Strength Геометрия чувств. — Киев: Ленинградский комитет литераторов, 1991. — 256 с. / The Geometry of Feelings Стечение сложных обстоятельств. — М.: «Советский спорт», 1990. — 18 с. — / Confluence of Difficult Circumstances Огненный Крест: в 3-х кн. — М.: Прогресс, Культура 1993. — / Flaming Cross: 3 vol. Русь без вождя. — Воронеж: Воронежская областная организация Союза писателей России, 1995. — 528 с. — / Rus' Without a Chieftain Мы есть и будем. — Воронеж: Издательство Воронежской областной типографии, 1996. — 718 с. — / We Are and Will Be Временщики. — М.: Детектив-Пресс, 1999. — 464 с. — / Timeservers Красные валеты. — М.: Алгоритм, 2005. — 360 с. — / Red Jacks 93-й. Год великого поражения. — М.: Алгоритм, 2006. — 288 с. — / 1993: The Year of the Great Defeat Великий Передел: в 2-х кн. — М.: ДПК Пресс, 2011. / The Great Repartition: 2 vol.

Politics

Vlasov was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies for the Lublinsky district of Moscow in 1989 and broke from the Communist Party. When he first entered the Duma, Vlasov was a member of the liberal Inter-regional Deputies Group, along with Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly Sobchak and Boris Yeltsin. It would also feature prominent antisemitic rhetoric.

Presidential campaign Vlasov ran as an independent candidate in the 1996 Russian presidential election. During his presidential campaign, Vlasov promoted himself as patriot fighting both communism and an alleged "Zionist conspiracy" against the Russian people. He dubbed his politics as "people's patriotism". He also likened his politics to Gaullism. He claimed that his politics were a more effective unifying force than communist or democratic ideals.

Vlasov alleged that Yeltsin's policies had pushed 40% of Russia's populace below the poverty line and brought the government only 3% of the real value of privatized state property. In his memoirs Vlasov mentions that he had another daughter, perhaps with Larisa. Vlasov underwent several surgeries, with the final surgery occurring in 2019 or 2020. He fully recovered some time afterwards, and had no illnesses.

Vlasov died of natural causes on 13 February 2021, in Moscow, Russia.