Johan Olin

Johan Frederik Olin (born June 30, 1883 in Vihti , † December 3, 1928 in Ingå ) was a Finnish wrestler . He won a silver medal in the Greco-Roman style in the heavyweight division at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 . He was also world champion of professional wrestlers in free style.

Life

Johan Olin started wrestling as a teenager. He was a member of the Helsingin Atletikklubi heavy athletics club . In 1911 he was used for the first time at an international championship, the World Championship in Helsinki . He was also at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm at the start. In 1915 he went to the United States, called himself John Olin, and became a professional wrestler. He made it to the world champion of professional wrestlers in free style in 1916. He stayed in the United States for a total of seven years. In 1922 he returned to Helsinki. Johan Olin died in 1928 at the age of only 45.

Success as an amateur wrestler

Although Johan Olin could never place himself in the top three winners at the Finnish heavyweight championships, he was used in 1911 at the World Championships in Helsinki. He started there in the heavyweight division and lost all the fights he had to contest against his Finnish compatriots Yrjö Saarela , Emil Backenius , Adolf Lindfors and Alex Järvinen . Therefore, out of five participants, he only came in 5th and last place.

Things went much better for him a year later, at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Heavyweight, Greco-Roman. Style, he won there over Raoul Paoli from France , Gustaf Lindström from Sweden and Jakob Neser from Germany . Then followed a defeat against Kalle Viljamaa and a victory over Yrjö Saarela , both compatriots of his. In his last fight in the main round, he won without a fight over Sören Marius Jensen from Denmark . According to the rules of the time, he was not yet an Olympic champion , but had to fight against Yrjö Saarela again in a specially scheduled decisive match. Saarela won this decisive battle and Johan Olin had to be content with the silver medal .

Career as a professional wrestler

Johan Olin went to the United States in 1915 and was based in Worcester, Massachusetts . He called himself John Olin there and switched to the free style. After some development battles against weaker opponents, he got the chance to fight for the title on December 11, 1916 in Springfield (Massachusetts) against the reigning world champion in free style Joe Stecher . Both wrestlers fell exhausted from the ring after a fight time of 2 hours and 20 minutes. While John Olin made his way back into the ring, Joe Stecher was unable to continue the fight due to a shoulder injury sustained in the fall. The new world champion was John Olin. However, this victory by Olin was not recognized by all professional wrestling associations existing at the time and not in all American states. Some continued to lead Joe Stecher as world champion because he was not defeated by Olin in battle.

On May 2, 1917, John Olin lost the world title in Chicago to Ed Lewis , who defeated him after a fight time of 2 hours and 37 minutes. Duplicity of Events: John Olin had to give up this fight due to a shoulder injury. Strangely enough, this time all associations recognized the new world champion Ed "Strangler" Lewis, although he had not defeated Olin in a fight either.

In the following years John Olin tried several times to become world champion again. But he didn't succeed. He fought the following fights:

• on March 15, 1918 he lost in Savannah , against Ed Lewis after a fight time of 1 hour and 73 minutes;
• on April 12, 1918, he lost in Des Moines to Earl Caddock in two courses in 54 minutes and 10 seconds and 10 minutes and 10 seconds;
• on December 15, 1919 he lost in Springfield to Joe Stecher after 2 hours and 2 minutes of fighting time by arm scissors;
• on November 25, 1920 he lost in Boston against Joe Stecher after a fight time in front of 43 minutes and 45 seconds by a head clip;
• on January 16, 1922 in Columbus and on February 7, 1922 in Springfield, he lost each to the Pole Stanislaus Zbyszko

swell

• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships , 1976;
• Website "www.wrestlingclassics.com",
• Website "www.georgiawrestlinghistory.com",
• Website "www.nyprowrestling.com",
• Website "fi.wikipedia.org",
• Website "www.tulpaini.fi"

Web links

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