Bruno Junk (27 September 1929 – 22 September 1995) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n race walker. He competed for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics and won bronze medals on both occasions. He set a world record in the 15 km in 1951 (1:08:08.0), and had world's best times in the 20 km in 1956 (1:30:00.8) and in the 3 km in 1952 (11:51.4). Domestically he won four Soviet titles: in 1951 and 1956 in the 20 km, and in 1952 and 1953 in the 10 km, and eight Estonian titles: in 1949–50 and 1956–59 in the 20 km, in 1958 in the 10 km, and in 1959 in the 30 km. Junk took up race walking in 1948 and retired in 1959. He later worked as an athletics coach at Dünamo Tallinn club, serving as its vice-president in 1976–1979. He was also vice-president (1964–1970) and then president (1979–1987) of the Estonian Athletics Federation. In parallel Junk worked for the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs and wrote for the Estonian sports periodicals ''Kehakultuur'' and ''Spordileht''. Since 1996 an annual memorial race walking tournament has been held in his honor in his birth town of Valga. There is a street named after him in

Puka, Estonia Puka (german: Bockenhof) is a small borough ( et, alevik) in Otepää Parish, Valga County, southern Estonia. It was the administrative centre of Puka Parish until 2017. At the 2011 Census, the settlement's population was 580. Architect Georg ...

, a borough near Valga.

References

1929 births 1995 deaths Sportspeople from Valga, Estonia Estonian male racewalkers Soviet male racewalkers Olympic athletes of the Soviet Union Olympic bronze medalists for the Soviet Union Athletes (track and field) at the 1952 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1956 Summer Olympics Dynamo sports society athletes Medalists at the 1956 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) {{estonia-athletics-bio-stub