Heinrich Rondi

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Heinrich Rondi medal table

Tug of war , weight lifting

German EmpireThe German Imperium German Empire
Olympic Summer Games
gold 1906 Athens Tug of war
bronze 1906 Athens Weightlifting with one hand

Heinrich Rondi (born June 19, 1877 in Düsseldorf ; † November 10, 1948 there ) was a German weightlifter , wrestler and tug of war .

Life

Heinrich Rondi grew up in Düsseldorf and has been an athlete since he was 15. First he did gymnastics and athletics. As he got heavier, he attended the training of heavy athletes, animated by wrestlers. One day he met professional wrestler world champion Jakob Koch from Neuss , with whom he trained wrestling and who quickly recognized his talent. Jakob Koch tried to persuade Heinrich Rondi to join the professional wrestlers. But Rondi remained an amateur and since he was 20 years old he only focused on heavy athletics (wrestling and weightlifting).

In the course of his career, which lasted from 1906 to 1914, he became an Olympic champion , world champion and European champion . He was one of the few heavy athletes who were among the best in the world in both wrestling and weightlifting. In his best years of competition he weighed around 110 kg.

During the First World War he served as a volunteer in the field artillery. He suffered a kidney disease that forced him not to start exercising again after being released from the army. From the age of 50, however, he again took part in wrestling and weightlifting competitions in this age group and secured several German championship titles in both disciplines.

Heinrich Rondi ran an inn at Linienstraße 19 in Düsseldorf . In 1938, the plumber Moritz Sommer, who was " half-Jewish " in the language of National Socialism , also lived there. During the pogrom night of 1938 , incited National Socialists tried to get hold of Moritz Sommers. Heinrich Rondi opposed these hordes with the full weight of his three hundredweight physique and actually managed to get the Nazi thugs to pull away. Moritz Sommer was then hidden by Heinrich Rondi and other helpful neighbors until April 15, 1945. On this day he was discovered by an army patrol and tortured two days before the Americans marched in and hanged publicly on the Oberbilker Markt in Düsseldorf.

Rondi took part in the Olympic Games in Athens in the tug of war, where he won the gold medal in the German team . He also took part in wrestling and weightlifting. He came fourth in wrestling and third in one-handed weightlifting, earning the bronze medal .

Career as a wrestler

Heinrich Rondi took part in the European championship in The Hague in 1906 after many successes in the Rhineland , which was then a stronghold of wrestlers . At that time, wrestling was only done in the Greco-Roman style in Europe. In the heavyweight division he won ahead of the Dutchman C. Kok and Fritz Stolzenwald , Germany, and thus became European champion . A curiosity on the side: The wrestling competitions lasted until seven o'clock in the morning because of the many participants on the final day. Since Heinrich Rondi also became European weightlifting champion in The Hague, he was the only athlete in the world to become European wrestling and weightlifting champion at the same event.

In 1906 the so-called Intermediate Games were held in Athens to commemorate the ten-year reintroduction of the Olympic Games. Heinrich Rondi learned from the German sports committee four days before leaving for Athens that he was scheduled to start in wrestling and weightlifting there. There could therefore be no question of specific preparation for these games. In wrestling he came in the heavyweight division, after a defeat against the eventual Olympic champion Søren Marinus Jensen from Denmark in 4th place.

At the European Championships in Copenhagen in 1907 Heinrich Rondi lost his first fight against the Dane Alfred Hansen and finished in 8th place. He was far more successful at the World Cup in Frankfurt am Main that same year . He was there behind the Dane Hans-Heinrich Egeberg and before Gustav Sperling , Germany and Carl Jensen from Denmark Vice World Champion . The weightlifting world championship also took place in Frankfurt am Main, and Heinrich Rondi also took part.

At the German championships Heinrich Rondi only made it onto the podium in 1909, when he finished third behind Willi Dießner from Essen and Winkler from Mannheim .

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, S = heavyweight, mostly over 85 kg body weight)

Career as a weightlifter

Heinrich Rondi was even more successful in weightlifting than in wrestling. In the individual disciplines of pushing, tearing and pushing, which were operated both with one arm and with both arms, technology played a subordinate role at the time. What mattered was sheer power. For example, when tearing and bumping, it was sometimes forbidden to change the position of the feet (fall out, crouch) or to kneel. Anyone who did it anyway had to expect weight deductions. It was usually a four-way or pentathlon. The Olympic three-way fight only came into the program in 1920.

Heinrich Rondi's top achievements were:

  • 99.75 kg one-armed tearing right,
  • 90 kg, one-armed tearing left,
  • 93.25 kg, one-armed press right,
  • 88.25 kg, one-armed push left,
  • 109.5 kg one-armed push right,
  • 100 kg, one-armed push left,
  • 121 kg two-armed tearing,
  • 140 kg pushing with both arms,
  • 174 kg pushing with both arms

As a specialist in one-armed tearing on the right, he set the following world records in this exercise from 1903 to 1912: 86.5 kg, 89.5 kg, 90.5 kg, 91.5 kg, 92.5 kg, 93 kg, 94.25 kg, 96 kg 96.5 kg u. 99.75 kg.

Although the lists of winners from those years are very incomplete, the following competitions by Heinrich Rondi can be reconstructed:

International success

  • 1906, 1st place , EM in The Hague , Vierkampf (VK), S, (Rondi scored 130 kg in two-armed pushing and 148 kg in two-armed pushing with unfree transfer) ahead of Dorries, the Netherlands, Heinrich Schneidereit and Schorn, both Germany ;
  • 1906, bronze medal , OS in Athens in one-armed tear, S, with 65.45 kg behind Josef Steinbach , Austria, 76.55 kg, Tullio Camillotti, Italy, 73.75 kg u. Heinrich Schneidereit, 73.75 kg and 4th place , in two-armed pushing, S, with 129.5 kg, together with Alexander Maspoli, Italy and Heinrich Schneidereit, 129.5 kg and behind Dimitri Tofalos , Greece , 142.5 kg and Josef Steinbach, 136.5 kg;
  • 1907, 1st place , EM in Copenhagen , UK, S, with 453 kg (93 kg one-armed tearing right, 85 kg one-armed tearing left, 127.5 kg two-arm pushing and 147.5 kg two-arm pushing) in front of Dorn, Denmark;
  • 1907, 1st place , World Championships in Frankfurt am Main , UK, S, with 12.5 points ahead of Heinrich Schneidereit and Georg Schleidt , both Germany;
  • 1909, 2nd place , World Championships in Düsseldorf , UK, S, behind Josef Grafl , 460 kg, and in front of Berthold Tandler , both Austria;
  • 1911, 2nd place , World Championships in Stuttgart , VK, S, behind Josef Grafl, 471.5 kg (85 kg and 80 kg one-armed tearing, 142.5 kg two-armed pushing and 164 kg two-armed pushing) and in front of Heinrich Schneidereit

German championships

(Note: at that time only took place every 3 years)

Tug of war

At the Olympic Intermediate Games in Athens in 1906, a tug-of-war competition took place, in which the Greek team, consisting of sailors, was the high favorite. Against the German team composed of heavy and track and field athletes and gymnasts in Athens, who u. a. Heinrich Rondi and Heinrich Schneidereit belonged, but the Greeks had no chance. Germany won the gold medal ahead of Greece and Sweden and Heinrich Rondi was thus Olympic champion . He did not contest any other tug of war competitions.

swell

  • Kraftsport trade journal from 1937, number 12, page 2,
  • Athletics magazine from 1967, number 9, page 22,
  • Hundred years of wrestling in Germany , Der Ringer publishing house, Niedernberg, 1991, pages 195 u. 220,
  • Professional magazine Athletik from 1931, number 35,
  • Anniversary publication 100 years of weightlifting in Germany , published by the Federal Association of German Weightlifters, 1991, pages 2 u. 3 (in this document Heinrich Rondis' bronze medal in weightlifting was forgotten!),
  • Website: www.unequipped-benchpress.de

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rondi, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German wrestler, weightlifter and tug of war
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1948
Place of death Dusseldorf