Aleksei Aleksandrovich Petrov (russian: Алексей Александрович Петров; born 8 September 1974) is a retired Russian

weightlifter Olympic weightlifting, or Olympic-style weightlifting (officially named Weightlifting), is a sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with each athlete trying to successfully lift ...

. He had his peak performance in 1994, when he won the European and world titles and set four world records: one in the snatch, two in the

clean and jerk The clean and jerk is a composite of two weightlifting movements, most often performed with a barbell: the clean and the jerk. During the ''clean'', the lifter moves the barbell from the floor to a racked position across the deltoids, without res ...

, and one in the total. In 1996, he won gold in the class at the

1996 Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

and set his second world record in the snatch. At the

2000 Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

he finished third in the class. His last international success was a European gold achieved in 2002. The Russian Olympic Committee selected younger competitors in favor of Petrov for the

2004 Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

, partly because of his injuries, excessive weight, and a failed drug test. Meanwhile, his season best was higher than the gold medal result at those Olympics. Petrov graduated from the Volgograd Academy of Physical Education. His weightlifting idol was

David Rigert David Adamovich Rigert (russian: Давид Ада́мович Ри́герт; born 12 March 1947) is a retired Soviet weightlifter and weightlifting coach of Austrian ancestry. During his career he set 65 ratified world records and won an Olympi ...

, and his first coaches were his father and elder brother. In 2004 he got engaged, had a daughter born the following year and officially retired from competition in 2006. In 2009, he became deputy director of sport administration of Volgograd.Алексей Петров вступил в новую должность
sport-vlg.ru (2009-08-27).

References

External links

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Alexei Petrov
at Database Weightlifting * * 1974 births Living people Russian male weightlifters Weightlifters at the 1996 Summer Olympics Weightlifters at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic weightlifters of Russia Olympic gold medalists for Russia Olympic bronze medalists for Russia Sportspeople from Volgograd Olympic medalists in weightlifting Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics European Weightlifting Championships medalists 20th-century Russian people 21st-century Russian people {{Russia-weightlifting-bio-stub