Jon Rønningen

Jon Rønningen medal table
Wrestler
Norway
Olympics Greco-Roman style
gold	1988 Seoul	up to 52 kg
gold	1992 Barcelona	up to 52 kg
Greco-Roman style world championships
gold	1985 Kolbotn	up to 52 kg
silver	1986 Budapest	up to 52 kg
bronze	1991 Varna	up to 52 kg
Greco-Roman style European championships
bronze	1986 Piraeus	up to 52 kg
silver	1988 Kolbotn	up to 52 kg
gold	1990 Poznan	up to 52 kg

Jon Rønningen (born November 28, 1962 in Oslo ) is a former Norwegian wrestler . He was two-time Olympic champion and world and European champion in the Greco-Roman style in flyweight.

Career

Jon Rønningen comes from a family of wrestlers. His father was a wrestler and weightlifter and his younger brother Lars Rønningen was also a wrestler and made it to two-time European champion and runner-up world champion . Jon began wrestling with this brother as a teenager in 1976. He started first for the Oslo Bryteklubb (BK) and then for Kolbotn Idrettslag (IL) , a large Norwegian sports club. He focused entirely on the Greco-Roman style and was mainly trained by Ronny Sidge and Zsygmond Dmowski. Jon Rønningen trained as a road builder and works for the city of Oslo. In addition to solid technical ability, Jon Rønningen owes his success above all to his enormous strength. He is said to have mastered 165 kg in bench press with a body weight of almost 55 kg.

The international wrestling career of the 1.57 meter tall athlete, who initially competed in paper weight (class up to 48 kg body weight) but soon in flyweight (class up to 52 kg body weight), began in 1980 at the European Junior Championships ( Juniors, was then age group up to 18 years of age) in Bursa in paper weight. He took 6th place. In 1980 he started at the European Senior Championships in Prievidza , ie he wanted to start, but had to give up before his first fight due to an injury and therefore ended up in 12th and last place in his weight class. However, this mishap was not a bad omen for his later career.

In 1981 he took part in the European Seniors Championships in Gothenburg in the paper weight category. He lost there against Vincenzo Maenza from Italy and against Totju Andonow from Bulgaria both just on points and came in 7th place. At the World Cup in Oslo in 1981 , he also had to pay hardship, because he lost to Roman Kierpacz from Poland and Lajos Rácz from Hungary and only came in 9th place.

In 1982 and 1983 he did not start at any senior championship, but took part in the Junior World Championship (Espoirs = up to the age of 20) in Kristiansund , Norway. He finished there in paper weight behind Ilie Matei from Romania and Iwan Samtajew from the USSR in 3rd place and thus won his first medal at an international championship.

In 1984 Jon Rønningen took part in the European Championships in Jönköping and started flying for the first time. There he defeated Anders Bükke from Sweden , but lost to Minsait Tasetdinow from the USSR and Welin Doganiski from Bulgaria and reached 7th place in his weight class. In the same year he took part in the Olympic Games for the first time in Los Angeles . He defeated in the flyweight again Anders Bükke (12: 0 technical points), lost to Mihai Cişmaș from Romania (3: 5 technical points) and against Atsuji Miyahara from Japan, who became Olympic champion and to whom he delivered a great fight and only just under 10:12 tech. Lost points. In the fight for 5th place he defeated Taisto Halonen from Finland , whom he won 14-0 technically within 2 minutes and 24 seconds. Points swept off the mat.

In 1985 Jon Rønningen scored his first big win. He became world flyweight champion in Kolbotn, Germany . In the final he defeated Minsait Tasetsinow and thus successfully took revenge for the defeat at the European Championships in 1984. On the way to this success he also defeated Bernd Scherer from the Federal Republic of Germany . In his home country Rønningen was then honored with the Morgenbladet gold medal.

He was also very successful in 1986, even if he did not win an international championship title. He was third at the European Championships in Athens . He lost in the pool final against Sergei Djudjajew from the Soviet Union and defeated Stanislaw Wroblewski from Poland 8: 4 in the fight for the EM bronze medal . Points. At the world championship of the same year in Budapest he reached the final battle, in which he lost again to Sergei Djudjajew and thus became vice- world champion .

In 1987 Jon Rønningen was only at the World Championships in Clermont-Ferrand , but only came in 7th place in flyweight. No individual results are known from this championship. In the Olympic year 1988 the European championship took place again in Kolbotn . Jon Rønningen fought his way there in flyweight again until the final, in which he was defeated by Alexander Ignatenko from the USSR with 0: 3 technical points. At the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 Jon Rønningen presented himself in excellent form and successively defeated Shawn Sheldon from the United States, Roman Kierpacz from Poland , against whom he was just 6: 5 techn. Points won, Csaba Vadász from Hungary , Lee Jae-suk from South Korea and in the final Atsuji Miyahara from Japan , the Olympic champion from 1984, which he was sure with 12: 7 techn. Points hit. European champion Alexander Ignatenko was defeated in the pool final by Miyahara. Jon Rønningen was the first Norwegian to win a gold medal in the history of the Olympic Games . For this success, Jon Rønningen was voted Sportsman of the Year in Norway in 1988 by Norwegian sports journalists and won the Fearnleys olympiske ærespris .

In the following years Jon Rønningen usually only started at one of the major international championships each year. He held it that way as early as 1989, when he only competed at the World Championships in Martigny , but disappointed there and only finished 7th in the flyweight division. In the fight for this place, he defeated the North Korean Bak Bam Su.

In 1990 he only started at the European Championships in Poznan . He was more successful there again and won the flyweight title for the first time with a victory in the final over Oleg Kutscherenko from the USSR . In 1991 he took part in the World Cup in Varna and was defeated there in the pool finals by Cuban Raúl Martínez Alemán . In the battle for 3rd place, he defeated Valentin Rebegea from Romania .

In the Olympic year 1992 he also took part in the European Championships in Copenhagen , but only came in 9th place in the flyweight division. Unfortunately, it is nowhere documented who he was eliminated from so early. Nonetheless, he was well prepared for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona . He defeated there in flyweight Ramon Mena, Panama (17: 0 technical points), the multiple world champion in paper weight Bratan Zenow , Bulgaria (5: 3 technical points), Senad Rizvanović , Yugoslavia (11: 0 technical points) and the Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan, who was still starting for the USSR at the time, with 2: 1 points. In this final fight it was 1-0 for Ter-Mkrtchyan with a fight time of 5 minutes to 2 seconds before the end. Then Jon Rønningen managed a two-point ranking on the edge of the mat, with which he literally won this fight in the last second with 2-1 technical points and became Olympic champion for the second time . He was only the third Norwegian to win two gold medals in individual competitions.

In 1993 Jon Rønningen took a break from the international championships. He appeared in 1994 at the World Championships in Tampere , but retired there early in the flyweight division and only finished 17th. It started promisingly at the 1995 World Cup in Prague , because in his second fight there he defeated Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan , who had become world champion in 1994, starting for Germany , with 3-1 techn. Points. Then he lost against Armen Nazarjan from Armenia (6:10 technical points) and against Zigmond Jansons from Latvia (3: 4 technical points) and had to retire. He finally finished 11th.

In 1996 Jon Rønningen was in better shape again. That was already evident at the European Championships in Budapest , where he reached the pool final, in which he lost to Andrij Kalaschnykow from Ukraine . He lost the fight for the EM bronze medal against Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan with 0: 4 techn. Points. For the Olympic Games of that year in Atlanta , the fourth in which he took part, he prepared again intensively. He lost there anyway against Lázaro Rivas from Cuba (0: 5 technical points) and against Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan (0: 9 technical points), which meant he was eliminated and only reached 17th place. In an interview he gave to a Norwegian newspaper in 2007, he said that he had trained harder before the Olympic Games than before the 1988 and 1992 Games. He was probably overtrained, which in 1996 meant that he lacked the necessary freshness and explosiveness.

Jon Rønningen resigned after these Olympics. He then worked as a youth coach and was Norwegian national coach for the wrestlers in the Greco-Roman style from 2000 to 2002. Since 2003 he has only been doing voluntary work as a trainer in the youth area of ​​his club. In September 2009 he was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling .

Jon Rønningen has two sons (twins) Thomas and Anders, who have also become wrestlers and both have won Norwegian championships, but have so far not been able to build on their father's international successes. Thomas and Anders Rønningen are also well known in German wrestling circles because they have already competed for SC Anger and 1. Luckenwalder SC in the German Bundesliga .

International success

year	space	competition	Weight class
1980	6th	Junior European Championship (Juniors) in Bursa	paper	Winner: Ilham Umajew, USSR ahead of Atanas Jentschew, Bulgaria a . Vincenzo Maenza , Italy
1980	12.	EM in Prievidza	paper	Retired due to injury before his first fight
1981	2.	Tournament in Västerås	paper	behind Ilham Umayev, in front of Ferenc Seres , Hungary
1981	3.	Klippan tournament	paper	behind Bojko, USSR u. Totju Andonow , Bulgaria
1981	7th	EM in Gothenburg	paper	after losing points to Vincenzo Maenza and Totju Andonow
1981	9.	World Cup in Oslo	To fly	after losing to Roman Kierpacz , Poland and Lajos Racz , Hungary
1983	2.	Tournament in Västerås	To fly	behind Doe Do-bank, South Korea
1983	3.	Junior World Championships (Espoirs) in Kristiansund , Norway	paper	behind Ilie Muti, Romania and Iwan Samtajew , USSR, on Ortze Ortzew , Bulgaria a. Shawn Sheldon , USA
1984	7th	EM in Jönköping	To fly	with victory over Anders Bükk, Sweden and defeats against Minsait Tasetdinow , USSR and Velin Doganiski, Bulgaria
1984	5.	OS in Los Angeles	To fly	with victory over Anders Bükk, defeats against Mihai Cişmaş , Romania and Atsuji Miyahara , Japan and a victory over Taisto Halonen , Finland
1985	7th	EM in Leipzig	To fly	Winner: Roman Kierpacz ahead of Minsait Tasetdinow and Walentin Krumow , Bulgaria
1985	1.	World Cup in Kolbotn	To fly	before Minsait Tasetdinow , Mihai Cișmaș, Atsuji Miyahara and Roman Kierpacz
1986	3.	EM in Athens	To fly	behind Sergei Djudjajew , USSR a. Mihai Cișmaș, ahead of Stanislaw Wroblewski , Poland and Serge Robert , France
1986	2.	World Cup in Budapest	To fly	behind Sergei Djudjajew, in front of Atsuji Miyahara, Valentin Krumow and Tibor Jankovics , CSSR
1987	7th	World Cup in Clermont-Ferrand	To fly	Winner: Pedro Roque Favier , Cuba, ahead of Roman Kierpacz and Alexander Ignatenko , USSR
1987	2.	World Cup in Albany / USA	To fly	behind Alexander Ignatenko , in front of Pedro Roque Favier
1988	2.	EM in Kolbotn	To fly	behind Alexander Ignatenko, in front of Valentin Krumow , Mihai Cişmaş and Peter Stjernberg , Sweden
1988	gold	OS in Seoul	To fly	with victories over Shawn Sheldon , Roman Kierpacz , Csaba Vadász , Hungary, Lee Jae-suk , South Korea and Atsuji Miyahara
1989	7th	World Cup in Martigny	To fly	Winner: Alexander Ignatenko ahead of Remzi Öztürk , Turkey and An Han-bong , South Korea
1990	1.	Grand Prix of the Federal Republic of Germany in Saarbrücken	To fly	before Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan and Samwel Danieljan , both USSR and Senad Rizvanović , Yugoslavia
1990	1.	"Peer-Gynt" Cup in Kolbotn	To fly	before An Han-bong and Min Kyung-gab, bde. South Korea
1990	1.	EM in Poznan	To fly	before Oleg Kutscherenko , USSR, Valentin Krumow and Csaba Vadász
1991	3.	World Cup in Varna	To fly	behind Raúl Martínez Alemán , Kuba u. Shawn Sheldon , before Valentin Rebegea , Romania, Oleg Kutscherenko u. Bratan Zenow
1992	3.	Grand Prix of Germany in Kelheim	To fly	behind Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan , GUS , and Olaf Brandt , Germany, in front of Serge Robert
1992	9.	EM in Copenhagen	To fly	Winner: Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan , GUS ahead of Bratan Zenow and Remzi Öztürk
1992	gold	OS in Barcelona	To fly	with wins over Ramon Mena, Panama , Shawn Sheldon , Bratan Zenow , Senad Rizvanović and Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan
1993	3.	Tournament in Paris	Bantam	behind Hakimow, Ukraine and Gadjiew, Russia
1994	17th	World Cup in Tampere	To fly	Winner: Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan , Germany ahead of Natig Aiwasow , Azerbaijan and Andrij Kalaschnykow , Ukraine
1995	11.	World Cup in Prague	To fly	Winner: Samwel Danieljan, Russia ahead of Armen Nazarjan , Armenia and Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan
1996	1.	Grand Prix of Norway in Porsgonn	To fly	before Dariusz Jabłoński , Poland, Ibad Achmedow, Belarus and Brandon Paulson , USA
1996	4th	EM in Budapest	To fly	behind Andrij Kalaschnykow , Armen Nazarjan and Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan , in front of Dariusz Jabłoński
1996	17th	OS in Atlanta	To fly	after losing to Lázaro Rivas , Cuba and Alfred Ter-Mkrtchyan

Explanations

• all competitions in Greco-Roman style
• OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship
• Paper weight, then up to 48 kg, fly weight, then up to 52 kg and bantam weight, then up to 57 kg body weight

swell

• Database of the Institute for Applied Training Sciences at the University of Leipzig
• Trade journal "Der Ringer"
• www.nettavisen.no

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FILA Hall of Fame members inducted in Denmark ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on July 22, 2010 (English)  

Web links

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