November 9, 1921: Viktor Chukarin, seven-time Olympic champion, was born
Born Victor Chukarin — a legendary Soviet gymnast and seven-time Olympic champion. Chukarin became the absolute world champion (in 1954) and two Olympic champions (in 1952 and 1956) after surviving 17 prisons and concentration camps during World War II. He was over 30 years old; gymnasts typically retire from professional sports much earlier.
It's impossible to win against this man.
(25-year-old Takashi Ono after losing to 35-year-old Chukarin in Melbourne)
Childhood in Mariupol
Born in a Ukrainian village Krasnoarmeisky in the Donetsk region, in the family of a Don Cossack and a Greek woman. He grew up in Mariupol. As a child I loved football.
Football stood above all other sports at such a height that, according to my firm boyish conviction, only pilots and sailors could be placed next to football players.
In 1937, my father was repressed. My mother was left with three children.
He was a poor student, had to repeat a year, and was a troublemaker—his teachers wrote: "a disruptor of school discipline who negatively influences the entire class." The neighbors said - "a strong guy, but a fool."
One day, I happened to see a gymnastics performance and got my palms bruised watching the human pyramids. I signed up for gymnastics classes. Soon, I went from being an outsider to a leader. I dropped out of the metallurgical technical school and transferred to the physical education technical school in Kyiv.
The coach was Adzhat Ibadulaev, the USSR's absolute gymnastics champion—he was the first in the Soviet Union to use strength training to develop endurance. Chukarin trained fanatically.
More and more often, like a film being developed after a shot, various combinations arise in the brain, one after another. They come at night and on the way to college.
In 1940 he became the champion of Ukraine and received the title of Master of Sports of the USSR.
War and captivity
I was 19 when the war began. I went to the front and served as an artilleryman. In September 1941, near Poltava, I was shell-shocked and captured. I went through a dozen and a half concentration camps, including BuchenwaldHe had the number 10491. Having called himself a peasant, he ended up working on the Bruns family farm.
I didn't know how to milk or mow grass, and Frau Bruns soon noticed this. But she didn't give me away.
From the camp Sandbostel At the end of the war, he and other prisoners were taken to a barge destined for sinking. He was rescued by the British. After being handed over to the Soviets, he spent six months in filtration camps.
In the fall of 1945, he arrived in Mariupol. Emaciated (he weighed 40 kg), unrecognizable. His mother, who had already lit candles for his repose, didn't recognize him. Only when she felt a childhood scar on his head did she believe him.
Mom! Well, I'm back!
Return to gymnastics
Getting back into shape and back to gymnastics wasn't easy: my muscles were weak, my body was unresponsive. At first, I couldn't even balance on the horizontal bar.
In 1946, at 25, I wanted to enroll in the Kiev Institute of Physical Education, but they didn't accept me. I enrolled in the Lviv Institute. I trained furiously, four hours a day. At the national championship in Leningrad He finished 12th. A year later, he finished 5th. In 1948, he became the USSR champion, beating his former coach, Ibadulaev. For the next two years, he was the undisputed national champion.
In 1951, he was the absolute champion at the World Youth Festival in Berlin: His total score of 118,75 points remains unbeaten.
Olympic victories
In the winter of 1952, preparing for the Olympics in HelsinkiChukarin suffered an injury—he tore his biceps tendon while performing a cross on the rings. It took him several months to recover. He won four gold medals in Helsinki.
Four years later in Melbourne The 35-year-old Chukarin won three more gold medals, including one for defeating a younger and more technically skilled Japanese athlete. Takashi Ono.
Among gymnasts he had the nickname "iron".
When he performed an exercise on the parallel bars, many were haunted by the feeling that if he made any mistake, if he missed an element, he could correct it with the power of these muscles: turning not only himself, but even the parallel bars beneath him. With his legs perfectly extended, he curled his toes so tightly that it seemed as if the gymnast was holding something with them.
(gymnast Yuri Titov)
After big-time sports
After Melbourne, he retired from professional sports. He became head of the gymnastics department at the Lviv Institute of Physical Education and coached the Soviet national team.
He died in 1984, before reaching the age of 63.