Donald Behm

Donald Ray "Don" Behm (born February 13, 1945 in Vancouver , Washington ) is a former American wrestler . He was silver medalist at the 1968 Olympic Games in free style in the bantamweight .

Career

Don Behm grew up in Winnetka , New Trier Township , Illinois , and began wrestling as a teenager in high school, concentrating entirely on free style. He won many awards in Michigan and the Midlands while in high school. After high school, he attended Michigan State University. There he developed very positively in terms of wrestling and took 3rd place in the NCAA Division I Collegiate Championships (US student championship) in 1965 and 2nd place in the bantamweight division in 1967. Don started in 1968 for the Major Daley Youth Foundation with many successes in the USA championships in free style. In 1973 and 1974 he was USA champion in bantam and featherweight.

On the international level, Behm made his bantamweight debut at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City . He had an excellent start, because he won five wins with only one loss to Aboutaleb Talebi from Iran , which prevented him from fighting Yōjirō Uetake from Japan for gold, the silver medal . His victory over the multiple Soviet world champion Ali Aliyev was particularly remarkable . Don was also able to convince at the 1969 World Cup in Mar del Plata . He won five fights again and was only defeated in the final by the Japanese Tadamichi Tanaka .

At the 1970 World Cup in Edmonton , Don surprisingly lost after three wins against the Poles Zbigniew Żedzicki and against Abdolbagher Jahangar from Iran and only came in 5th place, although he had again defeated Ali Aliyev in a preliminary round match. At the 1971 World Cup in Sofia , Don was again in excellent shape. There were five more wins for him. But he failed again in the final against a Japanese, Hideaki Yanagida . Before that, he had taken revenge on Jahangar and Zedzicki for the defeats in 1970.

In the US Olympic elimination for the Games in Munich , Don Behm failed to Richard Sanders . At the end of his international career, however, he competed again at the 1973 World Cup in Tehran . With the 4th place he just missed a medal there.

After finishing his active wrestling career, Don Behm has been a coach at East Lansing High School for 30 years. From 1977 to 1983 he was also active in the coaching staff of the US national freestyle team.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, F = Freestyle, Ba = Bantamweight, Fe = featherweight, at that time up to 57 kg or 62 kg body weight)

• 1968, silver medal , OS in Mexico City , F, Ba, with victories over Javier Raxon , Guatemala , Muhammad Sardar , Pakistan , Bishambar Singh , India , Ali Aliyev , USSR and Iwan Schawow , Bulgaria and one defeat against Aboutaleb Talebi , Iran ;
• 1969, 2nd place , World Championship in Mar del Plata , F, Ba, with victories over Marco Teran , Ecuador , Badsaryn Süchbaatar , Mongolia , Pawel Maljan , USSR, Aboutaleb Talebi, Iran and Karl Staric, Canada , a draw against Iwan Schawow and a loss to Tadamichi Tanaka , Japan ;
• 1970, 5th place , World Championships in Edmonton , F, Ba, with victories over Herbert Singeman, Canada, Ali Alijew and Hassan Karaman, Turkey and defeats against Zbigniew Żedzicki , Poland and Abdolbagher Jahangar , Iran;
• 1971, 1st place , Pan American Games, F, Ba, ahead of Jorge Ramos , Cuba and Eduardo Maggiolo, Argentina ;
• 1971, 1st place , Grand Prix of Georgia in Tbilisi , F, Ba, ahead of Dobrogschewidze and Pawel Maljan, bde. USSR;
• 1971, 2nd place , World Cup in Sofia , F, Ba, with victories over Hassan Karaman, Eduardo Maggiolo, Abdolbagher Jahangar, Zbigniew Żedzicki and Megdiin Choilogdordsch , Mongolia , a draw against Vladimir Shatkow, USSR and a defeat against Hideaki Yanagida , Japan;
• 1973, 5th place , World Cup in Tehran , F, Ba, with victories over Horst Mayer , GDR , Khiou Kha, North Korea and Eduard Giray , FRG and defeats to Megdiin Choilogdordsch and Sahin Bak, Turkey;
• 1973, 5th place , Student World Cup in Moscow , F, Ba, behind T. Sasaki, Japan, Mohsen Farahvashi , Iran, P. Tschestjakow, USSR and S. Kumar, India and in front of D. Minegusti, Italy

USA championships

• 1968, 4th place, F, Ba, behind Richard Sofman , Masaaki Hatta and James P. Hanson,
• 1973, 1st place, F, Ba, in front of James Carr and John Morley,
• 1974, 1st place, F, Fe, in front of David Pruzansky and Tesu Ikeno,
• 1975, 5th place, F, Fe, behind Doug Moses, Mu Chang, Kiyoshe Abe and Jim Humphrey ,
• 1976, 5th place, F, Fe, behind Kiyoshe Abe, Jim Humphrey, Phil Parker and Mark Massery,
• 1977, 3rd place, F, Fe, behind Jim Humphrey and Tim Cisewski and in front of Kenichi Horii and Nick Gallo

swell

• various issues of the specialist magazines "Athletik" from 1968 to 1975 and "Der Ringer" from 1976 to 1977,
• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships, 1976

Web links

• Profile of Donald Behm at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Donald Behm in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )