Vyacheslav Ivanovich Lemeshev (russian: Вячеслав Иванович Лемешев) (April 3, 1952 in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

— January 27, 1996) was an Olympic boxer from the

USSR 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 nati ...

. Soviet physiologists, while examining Lemeshev abilities with electronic measuring devices, discovered his extremely fast, split-second reaction, uncommon not only for boxers, but for the other athletes as well, and decisive when it comes to the counterpunches and cross-counters, in which he was one of the best in the entire middleweight, though severe trauma of the left hand (Lemeshev was a southpaw) ended his olympic career, and boxing career as well, when resulted in several knockout losses in a row.

Career

Lemeshev trained at the

Armed Forces sports society The Sports Clubs of the Armed Forces, Physical Culture and Sports Association of the Soviet Armed Forces (russian: спортивные клубы Армии �КА} ''sportivnye kluby Armiy, SKA''; russian: Физкультурно-спортив� ...

. During his career Lemeshev won 103 fights out of 111.Profile in the Olympic Encyclopedia
/ref> He won the gold medal in the

middleweight Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to . Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...

division (–75 kg) at the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 19 ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. Lemeshev knocked out four of his five opponents to win the gold medal. He knocked out future World Light Heavyweight champion, American Marvin Johnson in two rounds in a semifinal, avenging an earlier loss to Johnson in the Soviet Union. He then scored a 1st round knockout (Time 2:17) over Reima Virtanen of Finland to win the gold medal. He also won European Championships in 1973 and 1975 and 1974 USSR Championship. He became the

Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR (russian: Единая Всесоюзная спортивная классификация) is a document which provided general Soviet physical education system requirements for both athletes an ...

in 1972 and was awarded the

Order of the Badge of Honor The Order of the Badge of Honour (russian: орден «Знак Почёта», orden "Znak Pochyota") was a civilian award of the Soviet Union. It was established on 25 November 1935, and was conferred on citizens of the USSR for outstanding ...

in the same year.

1972 Olympic results

* Round of 32: Defeated Wiem Gommies (Indonesia) KO 1 * Round of 16: Defeated Hans-Joachim Brauske (East Germany) by decision, 5-0 * Quarterfinal: Defeated Nazif Kuran (Turkey) TKO 2 * Semifinal: Defeated Marvin Johnson (United States) TKO 2 * Final: Defeated Reima Virtanen (Finland) KO 1 (won gold medal)

References

sports-reference

External links

* 1952 births 1996 deaths Martial artists from Moscow Honoured Masters of Sport of the USSR Soviet male boxers Middleweight boxers Boxers at the 1972 Summer Olympics Olympic boxers of the Soviet Union Olympic gold medalists for the Soviet Union Armed Forces sports society athletes Olympic medalists in boxing Russian male boxers Medalists at the 1972 Summer Olympics Southpaw boxers {{USSR-Olympic-medalist-stub