Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev was born in the Ryazan region, in the small village of Pokrovo-Shishkino, on January 7, 1942. Vasily was the fourth child in the family of an employee of a local distillery.
The boy grew up as a frisky and intelligent child, was trustful of the world around him. A distinctive feature of this boy was inquisitiveness and a desire for knowledge.
Parting with native places
At the age of eleven, Vasya said goodbye to school in the Ryazan region due to the fact that his family went to the northern regions of the Soviet Union, to the small village of Rochegda (Arkhangelsk region), where he went to study in the 5th grade of a local school.
Inhabitants of a taiga village lived by felling forests, followed by stacking and rafting down the Northern Dvina. The whole family of Vasily began to do the same thing as soon as they settled in the Arkhangelsk lands.
Logs and trolleys - first rods
In winter, the boy studied at school, and in summer he helped his parents in the forest, and this became an occupation from year to year. Logs of felled fir and pine trees became the starting bar for Alekseev. Next - wheels fromtrolleys.
Once I saw thirteen-year-old Vasya how his neighbor was pressing iron things ten times in a row, and decided to compete with the young man. The first attempt with the trolley axle was not successful. Then the future athlete woke up his athletic character: not knowing anything about weightlifting, Vasya squeezed the axle 12 times. The agile and strong boy was a real discovery for the physical education teacher of the local school. That is why, since 1955, Alekseev attended all youth competitions at the district and regional level.
Difficult student years
After graduating from high school, Alekseev passed his exams with flying colours, and was enrolled in the Forest Engineering Institute in Arkhangelsk. Then he remembered the children's weightlifting hobby. A good weightlifting section functioned at the university. But on school days at the institute, Vasily Alekseev did not have the opportunity to train. Training was rare, by no means on a permanent basis. The student's meals were poor. And Vasily did not want to expect help from his family because of his pride. That is why he often had to work at the Arkhangelsk marina instead of training.
Family life
1961 Alekseev finished with a sum of three hundred and fifteen kilograms. But he was not destined to increase this result, because he took an academic leave: a young twenty-year-old athlete fell in love and, as expected, married a migrant like himself, named Olimpiada.
In search of a normal incomeAlekseev went to the Tyumen region for logging. Wanting to continue his athletic hobby, Vasily brought all kinds of metal things to the hostel where he lived, equipped them with scrap and began to conduct his training in the evening. For this "self-will" the young strong man was called to the executive committee for a conversation, where he was warned with a fine not to make noise with metal when others were on vacation. After such a collision, Vasily returned to his family and to college studies. Passed the exams well. He had two sons - Sergey and Dmitry. For a strong family nest, a decent salary was needed. And the athlete decides to go to the correspondence department. This gave him the opportunity to move to the small town of Koryazhma and take shape as a master of the Kotlas plant for the production of pulp and paper products. Due to the excellent reputation of the part-time student, he was promoted to shift supervisor. Prosperity in the family grew, and then Alekseev continued weightlifting training. Vasily made the master's norm in just a year. But sports specialists in Arkhangelsk could not believe that a master weightlifter could grow up in a small village, and, accordingly, the title of master was not credited to him. And so he and his family decided to leave for the city of Shakhty (Rostov Region), where weightlifters were trained by Rudolf Plyukfelder, an Olympic champion. First, he went there without his family to find work and housing.
In this regional city, Vasilyev found both a position at the mine and training in a specialized gym. And on top of that, he submitted papers to the branch of the Novocherkassk Polytechnic University, to the mountainfaculty. And only with the champion of the Olympics could not find a common language.
First victories in the national team
And then he decided to train on his own and also achieved rare results.
Weightlifting training for the Olympics in Mexico City was held in the Caucasus Mountains - in the Tsey Gorge.
He represented the national team in the international competition "Friendship Cup". At the championship in Kyiv in March 1969, he overtook the second champion of the Olympics in Mexico City Reading (Belgium), lifting 530 kg.
First failures
Vasily would have needed to maintain strength in his back in 1969, but he constantly competed. In the end, at the Rostov championship, he found himself outside the line of winners.
The Soviet team trained for the Warsaw tournament, but the young weightlifter was not invited to it. According to the decision of the Moscow doctors, he was forbidden to lift the bar, otherwise he was threatened with disability. Thus, Vasily for 6 months left the sight of the masters.
With renewed vigor
And the forgotten weightlifter broke 4 world records in a single evening. 01/24/70 in the city of Velikiye Luki, a Soviet strongman at the age of twenty-eight pushed Dube and Bednarsky (USA) out of the world record holders and twice exceeded the level of Zhabotinsky in triathlon.
In March, in Minsk, a Soviet weightlifter set a one-of-a-kind achievement at the Friendship Cup competition. This started a new era of the six hundred!
In June 1970, the firstEuropean weightlifters gathered in Szombathely (Hungary). Alekseev got a little sick, but went to the platform and for the 4th time in 6 months "walked through the achievements." With a dash of 219.5kg, he crossed out Reading's record, then pulled the usual 170 and clean and jerked 225.5. To the latter, he added a new winning total - 612.5kg.
At competitions in the United States of America, Vasily pulled a 500-pound projectile, and he became a pioneer in a similar barbell.
After winning the European championship in Sofia in 1971, he completed his diploma with honors and graduated as a mining engineer.
The absolute world champion
On the platform in Lima (Peru) Vasily Alekseev again achieved the title of absolute world champion.
The triumph in Lima further strengthened Alekseevsky's prestige. Media workers around the world once again included him in the list of the best athletes of the year. In addition to this, taking into account the records of Vasily Alekseev, the French Sports Academy gave the Soviet weightlifter the title of "Athlete No. 1 of 1971". He was awarded the "President's Prize".
The main nominees for the first places approached the games of 1972 in Munich with the following results: Alekseev - 645, Patera - 635, Mang - 630, Serge Reding - 620 kg.
After 2 offsets, Vasily has 410 kg, and Manga has 395. In the last offset, he pushes 230 kg and the total is 640. Zhabotinsky's record, which was set in Tokyo, was bypassed by 67.5 kg.
For 2.5 years weightlifter Vasily Alekseev 54 times exceeded world records. Absolute record holder of 3 European championships, 3 worldchampionships, winner of the 20th Olympic Games.
After the Munich Games, the weightlifter is tormented by previous injuries, he is increasingly inclined to a measured lifestyle. In order to save energy, he rarely participates in competitions. The principle of his training has also changed: now it was not necessary to squeeze up to 30 tons of metal daily. He did not take care of increasing the mass of the muscle, but of its quality indicator. On top of that, the bench press was canceled after the Munich Olympics. The reason for this was Alekseevsky's triumph of strength. Vasily Alekseev again set a record in June 1973 in Madrid at the European Championship. In the same period, he wins the World Championship in Cuba (Havana).
In 1974 (in May), the Soviet weightlifter was ahead of everyone at the championship in Verona, took the record in the snatch - 187.5, and again he was the bearer of all world achievements. At the championship in Manila, the Soviet hero overcame 425 kg, throwing back Reading by 35 kg.
Plachkov at the age of 22 (Bulgaria) takes the platform. Many fans now preferred the new strongman.
12,000 fans who came to Luzhniki witnessed Vasily Alekseev's record: 245.5 in the clean and jerk and 427.5 in the total. Plachkov beat the world record in the snatch, but blundered in the clean and jerk.
Competing in Karaganda, he reached the title of champion of the Soviet Union for the 7th time. Alekseev Vasily Ivanovich set the 76th world record - 435 kg in biathlon.
Bonk started at the Montreal Olympicswith 165 kg and graduated with a reading of only 170 kg. Alekseev really wanted to start with 180, but he was convinced with 175 kg. In the 3rd standings, he easily lifted a barbell of 185 kg.
After listening to the coach, Alekseev at the beginning pushed 230 kg. And then - 255. The audience kept him for a long time. The applause sounded endlessly, and Vasily gave them a Russian bow. He refused the third test.
"Stuttgart Zeitung" 09/26/77 reported that for the 8th time the Soviet weightlifter won the title of heavyweight champion.
1.11.77 Alekseev pushed the bar at 256 kg, setting a new world record.
At the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow, only Heuser (world champion in 1978) and Rakhmanov (winner of 1979 in Thessaloniki) competed with him. Rakhmanov won. He was able to reproduce Alekseev's Olympic record in biathlon (440 kg).
What prevented the Soviet weightlifter from winning? Probably, the Soviet strongman did not take into account the main thing - after a long break, weightlifters do not feel the platform. For 2 years, Vasily did not take part in any championships, he tried to save his strength for the Moscow Olympiad. And that was his big mistake. He did not remember how to behave in competitions. For 10 years Alekseev Vasily Ivanovich sat on the throne as the strongest weightlifter in the world, but he was forced to make room for the sake of the young.
Now head coach
Then he was chosen as the head coach of the Soviet national team. With him, which can also be attributed to an absolute achievement, not a single member of the teamwas not injured (training was carried out according to a special methodology) and no one received a “zero” rating. Alekseev left the Soviet team when the Soviet Union collapsed. This, one might say, ended the sports biography of Vasily Alekseev.
