Charles Rigoulot

Charles Rigoulot, 1923

Charles Rigoulot (born November 3, 1903 in Le Vésinet , † August 22, 1962 in Paris ) was a French weightlifter .

Career as a wrestler

French weightlifters won nine gold medals at the five Summer Olympic Games , which took place from 1920 to 1936. This made them by far the most successful nation in the world. The most famous Olympic champion of these was Charles Rigoulot. Charles began lifting weights in 1922 after previously doing athletics and soccer as a teenager. Within a very short time he developed into a world-class athlete. At that time he weighed approx. 81 kg with a height of 1.73 m. His career as an amateur weightlifter lasted only three years but earned him an Olympic gold medal. From 1925 to 1933 he was a professional weightlifter and showed outstanding performance in this sport. From 1936 he worked as a professional wrestler (catcher) for about 15 years and stood in the ring with countless athletes.

Rigoulot is unforgettable in France. Numerous sports halls and sports fields bear his name.

Racing car driver

Charles Rigoulot also competed in several automobile races from 1934 to 1937 and won several races. Among other things, he was in 1937 when 24-hour race at Le Mans at the start.

statistics

Career as a weightlifter (amateur)

(OS = Olympic Games, FK = pentathlon, Hs = light heavyweight)

• 1923, 1st place in the championship of Paris , Hs, FK, with 395 kg with the following individual performances:
  • 60 kg, one-armed tearing, left,
  • 70 kg, one-armed tearing, right,
  • 65 kg, pushing with both arms,
  • 90 kg, two-armed tearing,
  • 110 kg, pushing with both arms
• 1923, 1st place , championship of France , Hs, FK, u. a. with the following services:
  • 100 kg, two-armed tearing,
  • 130 kg, pushing with both arms
• 1924, 2nd place , Championship of France (no details known)
• 1924, gold medal , OS in Paris , Hs, FK, with 502.5 kg, in front of Fritz Hünenberger , Switzerland , 490 kg and Leopold Friedrich, Austria , 490 kg. His individual achievements were:
  • 87.5 kg, one-armed snatch,
  • 92.5 kg, one-armed pushing,
  • 85 kg, pushing with both arms,
  • 102.5 kg, two-armed tearing,
  • 135 kg, pushing with both arms
• In 1925 Rigoulot set the following world records as an amateur:
  • 101 kg, in one-armed tearing, right,
  • 161.5 kg, when pushing with both arms

Career as a weightlifter (professional)

Charles Rigoulot started as a professional weightlifter from 1925 to 1933. He competed against other weightlifters or showed his skills in demonstrations in circuses, in variety theaters or at amateur sports competitions. Above all, he showed performances in tearing and pushing that far exceeded the performances of the best amateurs of the time ( Josef Straßberger , Sayed Nosseir , Jaroslav Skobla , Josef Manger ).

In the first year of his professional career, he played a challenge in Paris against Ernest Cadine , France, the Olympic weightlifting champion in the light heavyweight class from 1920. A 10-fight was fought, the Rigoulot, who now weighed 98 kg, against the 91 kg heavy Cadine with 1,082.0 kg: won 1,077.5 kg. Within this competition Rigoulot u. a. in two-armed tearing 120.5 kg and in two-armed thrusting 156 kg.

In 1926 he won a decathlon in Marseille against the Luxemburgish Joseph Alzin , who had won the silver medal in the heavyweight division at the Olympic Games in 1920 and weighed 147 kg in the meantime. In 1930 he took part in the competition of the strongest men in the world at the Cirque Medrano in Paris , but lost to the power acrobat Milo Barus .

In his professional time he set the following world records in weightlifting: (He always weighed between 100 and 110 kg)

in two-armed tearing:

• 126.5 kg, 1925,
• 143 kg, 1931

in two-armed thrusting:

• 153.5 kg, 1925,
• 165.5 kg, 1925,
• 171 kg, 1925,
• 175 kg, 1927,
• 176.5 kg, 1927,
• 179.5 kg, 1928,
• 180.5 kg, 1928,
• 182.5 kg, 1929

In 1929, he also bumped the rail-mounted railroad wheels made by French power artist Louis Apollon , which weighed 182.5 kg. The difficulty in lifting this weight was the thick diameter of the bar, which made it impossible to grasp it completely with the hand and required extraordinary finger strength. After Rigoulot it was only John Davis (weightlifter) in 1950 and Norbert Schemansky in 1954 who managed to push these wheels again.

Career as a professional wrestler (catcher)

After 1935 Charles Rigoulot switched to the "Catchers", which at that time enjoyed great popularity in France and were very well received. He fought in this profession for about 15 years.

Some of his most famous opponents were there:

• Henry Deglane , formerly Olympic champion in wrestling in 1920, heavyweight,
• Dan Koloff , famous Bulgarian champion wrestler and
• Ernest Cadine , his 1925 opponent in weightlifting, who had also become a successful catcher by now.

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1937	Yves Giraud-Cabantous	Chenard & Walcker	Yves Giraud-Cabantous	failure	accident

Web links

• Charles Rigoulot in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Illustrated Österreichisches Sportblatt (digitized edition by Charles Rigoulot in Vienna 1926)