Yuri Afanassjewitsch Melichow

Melichow 1961

Yuri Afanassjewitsch Melichow , English transcription Yuri Melikhov , ( Russian Юрий Афанасьевич Мелихов ; born April 1, 1937 in Leningrad , Soviet Union ; † 2000 ) was a Soviet cyclist .

Athletic career

Yuri Melichow was a state amateur of the Soviet Cycling Federation. Melichow was the road race champion of the Soviet Union in 1961.

Melichow's first registered international appearance took place at the three-country stage race Internationale Friedensfahrt 1959 . The 22-year-old newcomer became the best Soviet driver, won a stage and finished seventh in the final classification. With his team he won the country ranking. By 1965 Melichow took part in a total of four peace trips. He was most successful in 1961 when, after a two-year absence, he became the tour winner and won four stages. In this race, Melichow caused a sensation with an unfair attack against the GDR driver Manfred Weißleder , when the two of them had a fist fight as a result. He was described as a spirited rider, but not a popular rider in the cycling peloton. Melichow finished second in 1962 without a day's victories , then took another two-year break in order to enter himself twice on the stage winners' list in 1965 . In the individual ranking, however, he only finished 45th.

In 1960 Melichow was part of the Soviet Union's squad for the road bike races at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome . He won the bronze medal with the Soviet four in the 100 km team time trial, in the individual road race he narrowly missed it and ended up in fourth place after a mass finish in the sprint. At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo , Melichow ended up in 60th place in the individual road race.

Melichow also came in ungrateful fourth place at the UCI Road World Championship in 1960 at the Sachsenring . There, too, he lost again in the sprint from the closed field. At the 1963 World Cup in Ronse , Belgium , he came back on the podium with his team in third place in the 100 km team time trial.

Before the peace drive scandal of 1961, Melichow made positive headlines in the same year when he became the first foreign driver to win the GDR road race around brown coal .

literature

• Klaus Ullrich : Every time in May . Sportverlag Berlin, 1987, ISBN 3-328-00177-8

Web links

• Juri Afanassjewitsch Melichow in the Radsportseiten.net database

Individual evidence

1. ^ New Germany (ed.): Täves Friedensfahrt-Lexikon . Berlin 1965, p. 25 .