Leonid Mikhailovich Shcherbakov

Leonid Michailowitsch Schcherbakow ( Russian : Леонид Михайлович Щербаков; born April 7, 1927 in Olebino, Yaroslavl Oblast ) is a former Soviet athlete who was European champion in the triple jump in 1950 and 1954 .

Shcherbakov was second behind Hugo Rausberg at the Soviet championships in 1948 . In 1949 he won his first championship title, but lost to Boris Sambrimborz in 1950 . From 1951 to 1956 Shcherbakov won six championship titles in a row, in 1957 he was second again, this time behind Oleg Ryachowski .

At the European Championships in Brussels in 1950 , Shcherbakov won 15.39 m gold with a 40 centimeter lead over the Finns Valdemar Rautio . Two years later at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 he finished second with 15.98 m behind the Brazilian Adhemar Ferreira da Silva ; the Brazilian had twice improved the world record with 16.12 m and 16.22 m in the final, Shcherbakov had increased his European record by 28 centimeters.

After he had increased the indoor world best in the triple jump to 15.52 m in March 1953, Shcherbakov managed a jump of 16.23 m in Moscow on July 19, 1953, which he exceeded the world record by one centimeter. At the European Championships in 1954 in Bern , he was able to successfully defend his European title. With 15.90 m he was clearly ahead of the Swede Roger Norman with 15.17 m.

In March 1955 Ferreira da Silva took back the world record with 16.56 m. On July 4, 1956, Shcherbakov set a new personal best with 16.46 m in Moscow, the jump meant his tenth Soviet national record and his seventh European record. At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 he was only sixth with 15.80 m, while Ferreira da Silva won ahead of the Icelander Vilhjálmur Einarsson .

Shcherbakov started for Dynamo Moscow . With a height of 1.78 m, his competition weight was 73 kg. After his career he worked as a trainer, so he trained the Cuban three-jump world record holder Pedro Pérez (1971: 17.40 m).

The Shcherbaki jumps, which arose from a misinterpretation of a translation from Russian, were named after him. What was meant was a jump exercise that he supposedly used as an athlete. The jumps are performed as follows: You crouch and jump in the air. The back leg is stretched and the forward leg is angled. In the air, the athlete looks like he's jumping for a run. The arms are in the position of a runner. The landing takes place again as a final jump in a crouched position. With the next jump, the leg and arm position is swapped. The exercise takes place almost on the spot. So you move a few meters. This is how the name of the exercise entered German sports literature. After a conversation with the national coach for the triple jump of the GDR, Heinz Rieger and Leonid Michailowitsch Shcherbakow in Cuba, the athlete confirmed that he had never done this exercise, but that he thought it was good.

Web links

• Leonid Michailowitsch Schcherbakow in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Leonid Shcherbakov in the database of World Athletics (English)

literature

• ATFS (ed): USSR Athletics Statistics . London 1988
• Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. Triple jump / pole vault . Grevenbroich 2002
• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics . Berlin 1999, published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation eV