Jakow Grigoryevich Punkin

Jakow Grigoryevich Punkin ( Russian Яков Григорьевич Пункин; born December 8, 1921 in Zaporizhia ; † October 12, 1994 ibid) was a Soviet wrestler . At the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952 , he was Olympic champion ahead of Imre Polyák from Hungary .

Career

Jakow Punkin started for Metallurg Zaporizhia and had already started wrestling in the late 1930s. At the beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into the Red Army. After Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union, he was taken prisoner by Germany in 1941 and spent four years in German prisoner-of-war camps and in German concentration camps. At the beginning of 1945 he was liberated from a concentration camp by the Red Army. At this point he still weighed 30 kg. After recovering from the horrors of the war, he began wrestling again in Zaporozhye and he was soon back in the top class of the Soviet featherweight division in the Greco-Roman style. For the first time he became Soviet champion in 1949. Since the Soviet Union did not take part in international wrestling championships again until the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 after taking part in the European Championships in 1947, Jakow, apart from starting at the communist-controlled World Youth Festival in 1951 in Berlin (East), was only able to take part in 1952 international wrestling career begin. Jakow was very successful in Helsinki, because he won the gold medal in the Greco-Roman style in featherweight with five wins . In the final he defeated his toughest competitor Imre Polyak from Hungary on points.

Jakow Punkin then only took part in the 1953 World Championships in Naples . He won his first three fights there and defeated, among others, Anton König , who started for Saarland , which was then an independent member of the world wrestling federation FILA, but was completely unexpectedly defeated in his fourth fight against Elie Naasan from Lebanon , dropped out and ended up in 5th place.

After 1953 Jakow switched to the lightweight and was 1954 and 1955 Soviet champion in this weight class. At the world championship in the Greco-Roman style in Karlsruhe, however, Grigori Gamarnik was preferred to him.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, Fe = featherweight, Le = lightweight, at that time up to 62 kg or 67 kg body weight)

• 1951, 1st place , World Youth Festival in Berlin (East), GR, Fe, ahead of Imre Polyák , Hungary and Gerhard Lohr, GDR ;
• 1952, gold medal , OS in Helsinki , GR, Fe, with victories over Anton Merle, France , Hassan Bozbey, Turkey , Safi Taha, Lebanon , Abdel Rashid, Egypt and Imre Polyak;
• 1953, 5th place , World Cup in Naples , GR, Fe, with victories over Anton König , Saarland , Ion Popescu , Romania and Bela Torma, Yugoslavia and one defeat against Elie Naasan , Lebanon;
• 1953, 1st place , World Youth Festival in Bucharest , GR, Fe, ahead of Imre Polyak and Gondzik, Poland

Soviet championships

• 1949, 1st place, GR, Fe,
• 1950, 1st place, GR, Fe,
• 1951, 1st place, GR, Fe, before Bjelow, Moscow and Puur, Tallinn ,
• 1952, 1st place, GR, Fe,
• 1954, 1st place, GR, Le,
• 1955, 1st place, GR, Le

swell

• Various issues of the professional journal Athletik from 1949 to 1955.
• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships.

Web links

• Profile of Jakow Punkin at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Photo by Jakow Punkin on page 3 of the "photo history" section