Grigory Yakovlevich Kriss ( uk, Григорій Якович Крісс, russian: Григорий Яковлевич Крисс, born 24 December 1940) is a retired

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Olympic

épée The ( or , ), sometimes spelled epee in English, is the largest and heaviest of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing. The modern derives from the 19th-century , a weapon which itself derives from the French small sword. This contain ...

fencer who won four Olympic medals.

Early life

Kriss was born in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, and is Jewish. He was an officer in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

of the Soviet Union.

Fencing career

He competed at the

1964 Olympics 1964 Olympics refers to both: *The 1964 Winter Olympics The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games (german: IX. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Innsbruck 1964 ( bar, Innschbruck 1964, label=Austro-Ba ...

winning a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

in Individual Epee, the 1968 Olympics winning

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

s in both Individual Epee and Team Epee, and the 1972 Olympics winning a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receive ...

in Team Epee. At the World Championships he won the Individual Epee silver medal in 1967, the Individual Epee gold medal in 1971, and four World Team Epee medals: a bronze in 1965, a silver in 1966, a gold in 1969, and a silver in 1971.

Hall of Fame

Kriss was inducted into the

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...

in 1989.

Life outside competitive fencing

He was a physical education teacher, and a fencing coach.''Culture and Life''
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References

External links