Jüri Tarmak

Jüri Tarmak (born July 21, 1946 in Tallinn ) is a former Estonian athlete who competed internationally for the Soviet Union due to the occupation of his home country . He became Olympic high jump champion in 1972 .

Life

At first Tarmak played basketball and volleyball and also ran athletics on the side . Since he was tall and slim, he was led to the high jump. The beginnings in this direction were modest: As a 17-year-old, Jüri only jumped 1.75 m. Two years later he finally made it 2 m, but he was still 20 cm short of the world's top. In 1966, the 20-year-old was able to record his first success: with a jump of 2.10 m, he finished second in the Soviet Junior Championships.

In 1970 he became a member of the Soviet national athletics team. His coaches were Viktor Vaiksaar in Tallinn and Pavel Gojchman at Dynamo Leningrad . At the European Athletics Indoor Championships in 1971 he won silver and a year later bronze. He experienced the high point of his career in 1972 when he won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Munich . He is the last Olympic champion to use the straddle jumping style, which was already outdated at the time.

Tarmak had already started an astronomy club as a schoolboy and attended evening school in order to work as a laboratory assistant in an observatory during the day . In Leningrad he studied theoretical astronomy at the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of the university there. However, he broke off this course to devote himself to his newly developed interest in social science issues. He received his doctorate and is now a lecturer in political economy. In February 2001 he was awarded the Order of the Estonian Red Cross in the 2nd category for his services .

successes

• 1972 Olympic Games in Munich: Gold with 2.23 m ahead of Stefan Junge (GDR) and Dwight Stones (USA) with 2.21 m each
• Indoor European Championship 1971 in Sofia: Silver behind István Major and in front of Endre Kelemen , both from Hungary
• Indoor European Championship 1972 in Grenoble: Bronze behind István Major (Hungary) and Kęstutis Šapka (Soviet Union)
• Annual world record 1972 with 2.25 m

Others

Jüri Tarmak's father, Aadu Tarmak , was also successful as a track and field athlete and won the Estonian championship in discus throwing in 1943/44 .

Web links

• Jüri Tarmak in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Sports achievements and photo (Estonian)
• Jüri Tarmak at sports.ru