Dimitrios Tofalos

Dimitrios Tofalos

Dimitrios Tofalos ( Greek Δημήτριος Τόφαλος , born April 14, 1884 in Patras ; † November 15, 1966 ibid) was a Greek weightlifter and wrestler . As a winner of the Olympic Intermediate Games and world record holder, he achieved great fame in Greece and is still considered the epitome of the strong and athletic man.

biography

Even in his youth, Tofalos stood out for his strength. After surviving a serious accident almost unscathed, it was generally considered a child prodigy : he had been playing at the Patras train station when a freight wagon derailed and his arm almost smashed. The doctors at the hospital wanted to perform an amputation, but the father prevented it. As a result, the arm healed again, but one hand was now shorter than the other.

Tofalos wanted to take part in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis , but on the outward journey he fell seriously ill and had to be hospitalized in Antwerp . Two years later, at the interim games in Athens in 1906 , which the IOC subsequently declared as unofficial , he won the gold medal in the two-arm weightlifting competition. (Back then there were no weight classes). He beat the Austrian Josef Steinbach and improved his own world record. As a result, he was received by thousands of people in his hometown. His world record lasted until 1914.

In 1908 weightlifting was not part of the Olympic program. In 1910, Tofalos moved to the United States for financial reasons . He was a professional wrestler and won 140 fights. In 1921 he received American citizenship. For several years he was the trainer of the professional wrestler Jim Londos , who was one of the most famous athletes in this sport during the Great Depression and won six world titles.

In 1952 Tofalos returned to Patras, where he spent the last years of his life. His hometown honored him in 1995 by naming a new sports arena after him, the Patras Arena Dimitrios Tofalos .

Web links

• Dimitrios Tofalos in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Remarks

1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120801010550/http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/to/dimitrios-tofalos-1.html
2. ↑ Some sources also mention 1877 as the year of birth.
3. ↑ Patras Arena Dimitrios Tofalos