Arnold Viiding

Arnold Viiding (born March 19, 1911 in Valga , † October 20, 2006 in Sydney ) was an Estonian athlete . He became the first European champion in the shot put in 1934 . At a height of 1.87 m, he had a competition weight of 94 kg.

From September 7th to 9th, 1934, the first European Athletics Championships were held in Turin . On the final day, 13 shot putters competed for the decision, including the later Olympic champion Hans Woellke , who was only eighth. The world record of the American Jack Torrance was 17.40 meters, the European record of the Czech František Douda was 16.20 meters. In Turin a very close and exciting final developed in which the first three athletes were ultimately one centimeter apart. Douda was third with 15.18 meters, Arnold Viiding won with 15.19 meters ahead of the tied Finn Risto Kuntsi . Viiding had already taken fifth place in the discus throw with 45.51 meters a day before his victory .

From 1931 to 1936 Viiding was six times Estonian champion in the shot put, three times he also won the title in discus throw. At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, he was eighth with 15.23 meters. In 1936 Viiding also set his best performance with 16.065 meters. This achievement was exceeded as the Estonian record in 1938 by Aleksander Kreek .

In 1932 Viiding joined the Estonian police, in 1940 he completed a law degree at the University of Tartu . During the time of the German occupation he was in command of the police school of the security police . In 1944 he fled first to Germany and in 1949 to Australia. There he ran a plastics processing factory from 1953 to 1979.

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics, Berlin 1999, published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation eV

Web links

• Arnold Viiding in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Estonian page on the occasion of his death ( memorial from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )