Valentin Hristov ( bg, Валентин Христов, born 16 March 1956) is a retired Bulgarian heavyweight

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 lif ...

. He is best known for being the first weightlifter to be disqualified from the

modern Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

for doping after anabolic steroid testing was introduced at the 1976 Games. He later went on to claim the silver at the 1980 Olympics. Hristov won the world and European titles in 1975 and 1977 and placed second in 1979. In 1975–76 he set nine ratified world records: three in the snatch, four 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 two in the total.Valentin Khristov
chidlovski.net Hristov originally won the gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal for Bulgaria but had the medal stripped and title revoked after testing positive for an undisclosed

anabolic steroid Anabolic steroids, also known more properly as anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS), are steroidal androgens that include natural androgens like testosterone (medication), testosterone as well as synthetic androgens that are structurally related ...

. This was before the IOC had banned those who cheated from future Olympic Games by testing positive for the use of PEDs, and the Bulgarian returned to claim the silver medal in 1980.

References

1956 births Living people Bulgarian male weightlifters Olympic weightlifters of Bulgaria Weightlifters at the 1976 Summer Olympics Weightlifters at the 1980 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for Bulgaria Olympic medalists in weightlifting Competitors stripped of Summer Olympics medals People from Pernik Medalists at the 1980 Summer Olympics World record setters in weightlifting European Weightlifting Championships medalists World Weightlifting Championships medalists {{Bulgaria-weightlifting-bio-stub