The 1968 Olympics were held in Mexico City in October. The Weightlifting was held from October 17th to October 21st. Some call these Olympic Games the Autumn Olympics due to its later than usual start. The reason for the late start was to avoid Mexico’s rainy season. The late start turned out to be a blessing because from July 26th until October 2nd, there were student protests and political unrest, which would have caused quite a distraction from the games.
In 1968 there were seven weight classes. 56 kilos/bantamweight, 60/featherweight, 67.5/lightweight, 75/middleweight, 82.5/light heavyweight, 90/middle heavyweight, and anyone over 90 kilos lifted as a heavyweight.
56-kilo / 123.4 lbs. Weight Class
Mohammad Nassiri of Iran won the gold medal in the 56-kilo/123.4 lbs class, and Imre Foldi of Hungary won the silver medal. Foldi and Nassiri totaled 367.5 kilos each, both World Records, but Nassiri was slightly lighter in body weight.
Foldi had also won a silver medal in the 1964 Olympics. Henryk Trebicki of Poland took the bronze medal, and three years later, he won silver at the World Championships.
60-kilo / 132.3 lbs. Weight Class
Yoshinobu Miyake of Japan won gold in the 60-kilo/132.3 lbs weight class with a total of 392.5 kilos. He also won the gold medal at the 1964 Olympics and a silver medal at the 1960 Summer Games. In his career, he broke 25 world records.
Dito Shanidze of the Soviet Union, who did not have much International competition experience, won the silver medal. Yoshiyuki Miyake of Japan, who won bronze at the 1965 and 1966 World Championships, won the bronze medal. He won gold at the 1969 & 1971 Worlds. The reason the gold medalist and bronze medalist have the same last name is because they are brothers.
67.5 kilo / 148.8 lbs. Weight Class
Waldemar Baszanowski of Poland, who totaled 437.5 kilos, an Olympic Record, was the gold medalist in the 67.5-kilo/148.8 lbs class. Baszanowski also won gold at the 1961 World Championships, silver at the 1962 and 1963 Worlds, gold at the 1964 Olympics and 1965 Worlds, and silver at the 1966 Worlds.
After the 1968 Olympics, Baszanowski won a gold medal at the 1969 Worlds and silver at the 1970 & 1971 Worlds. He also broke 24 World Records in his career. Parviz Jalayer of Iran, who won a bronze medal at the 1966 Worlds, won the silver medal.
The bronze medal went to Marian Zielinski of Poland. Zielinski also won bronze at the 1956 Olympics, gold at the 1959 Worlds, bronze at the 1961 & 1962 Worlds, gold at the 1963 Worlds, a bronze at the 1964 Olympics, and silver at the 1965 & 1966 Worlds.
75-kilo / 165.3 lbs. Weight Class
In the 75-kilo/165.3 lbs class, Victor Kurentsov of the Soviet Union won the gold medal with a total of 475, an Olympic Record. Kurentsov won silver at the 1964 Olympics and gold at the 1965, 1966, 1969, and 1970 Worlds. Massahi Ouchi of Japan, who won a bronze medal at the 1964 Games, won the silver.
In 1969, he won the gold at the Worlds. The bronze medal went to Hungarian Karoly Bakos. American Russell Knipp finished in fourth place, just 2.5 kilos behind Bakos.
82.5 kilo / 181.9 lbs. Weight Class
Boris Selitsky of the Soviet team won the 82.5-kilo/181.9 lbs class with a total of 485. Vladimir Belyaev, another Soviet lifter, took the silver medal with the same total of 485.
The 485 total was a World Record, but Belyaev lost the tiebreaker due to a slightly heavier body weight. Belyaev also won gold at the 1966 Worlds. The bronze medal went to Norbert Ozimek of Poland, who won gold at the 1965 Worlds.
90-kilo / 198.4 lbs. Weight Class
Kaarlo Kangasniemi of Finland won the gold in the 90-kilo/198.4 weight class with an Olympic Record 517.5-kilo total. To this day, he remains the only Finnish lifter to win a gold medal in the Olympics.
Kaarlo also won gold at the 1969 Worlds and silver at the 1971 Worlds, where he dropped down to the 82.5 weight class. He broke sixteen world records in his career. The silver medal went to Soviet lifter Jan Talts who also won silver at the 1969 Worlds and a gold medal at the 1970 Worlds.
He won both of those medals in the new 110-kilo/242.5 lbs weight class. The bronze medal went to Marek Golab of Poland, who also won a bronze at the 1966 Worlds.
Over 90-kilo / 198.4 Weight Class
Leonid Zhabotinsky won the gold medal in the over 90-kilo weight class with an Olympic Record total of 572.5. He also won a bronze medal at the 1963 Worlds, gold at the 1964 Olympics, and gold at the 1965 and 1966 Worlds. In his career, he broke nineteen world records.
Serge Reding of Belgium, a country not known for producing great weightlifters, won the silver medal. Reding also won silver at the 1969, 1970, and 1974 World Championships. Reding also has the distinction of snatching over 400 lbs, the first man to do it.
The bronze medal went to Joe Dube, the only American lifter to medal in these Olympics. The following year, Dube won the gold at the Worlds. Dube and teammate Bob Bednarski are the last American male lifters to win a gold medal at the World Championships.
After a seven-year absence from competitive weightlifting, Dube placed 7th at the 1979 Worlds Strongest Man Competition.
The Soviet Union won the team standings with three golds and three silvers. Poland placed second with one gold and four bronze. Japan placed third with one gold, one silver, and one bronze.
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Mark Morthier is the host of Yesterday’s Sports, a podcast dedicated to reliving memorable sports moments from his childhood days and beyond. He grew up in New Jersey just across from New York City, so many of his episodes revolve around the great sport’s teams of the 70s for the New York area.
He is also an author of No Nonsense, Old School Weight Training (Second Edition): A Guide for People with Limited Time and Running Wild: (Growing Up in the 1970s)
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