Nikolai Ivanovich Jakowenko

Nikolai Jakowenko medal table
Wrestler
Soviet Union
Olympic games
silver	1968 Mexico City	Semi-difficult
silver	1972 Munich	Heavy
World Championship
gold	1967 Bucharest	Semi-difficult
gold	1969 Mar del Plata	Heavy
bronze	1970 Edmonton	Heavy
European Championship
gold	1972 Katowice	Heavy

Nikolai Ivanovich Jakovenko ( Russian: Николай Иванович Яковенко , scientific transliteration Nikolaj Ivanovič Jakovenko ; born November 5, 1941 in Rostov-on-Don ; † December 22, 2006 ) was a Soviet wrestler . He won in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Olympic Games in 1968 and 1972 each have a silver medal and was 1967 and 1969 world champion in the heavyweight division.

Career

Nikolai Jakowenko grew up in Rostov-on-Don and started wrestling there as a teenager. He was a member of the VS Rostov sports club throughout his career and developed into a world-class wrestler in the Greco-Roman style. However, it took until 1967, when he was already 26 years old, before he was able to assert himself in his weight class in the Soviet Union . Although he finished in the renowned Ivan Poddubny tournament in Moscow in 1967 in the light heavyweight division behind Vasily Merkulov , he was still nominated for the world championship of that year in Bucharest .

In Bucharest he was able to convince right away and defeated, among others, the world class wrestlers Ferenc Kiss from Hungary and Nicolae Martinescu from Romania . Two draws against Bojan Radew from Bulgaria and Per Svensson from Sweden were enough for him to win the title. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City , he was of course the favorite as world champion . He also won four fights and again fought against Bojan Radew in a draw. Radew had fewer missing points than Jakowenko after the end of the fighting and thus became Olympic champion, while the latter had to be content with the silver medal .

At the 1969 World Championships in Mar del Plata , Nikolai Jakowenko won his second world championship title in the heavyweight division. He beat Nicolae Martinescu again and came in the final fight against Stefan Petrow from Bulgaria to a draw that was enough for him to win the title. At the 1970 World Championships in Edmonton , Nikolai Jakowenko got after three wins against Ferenc Kiss and Per Svensson only a draw, which threw him back to 3rd place behind these two wrestlers.

In 1971 Nikolai Jakowenko could not qualify for the international championships. At the world championship this year in Sofia Vasily Merkulow was used, but could not convince and only took 4th place.

In 1972 Nikolai Jakowenko made his way back to the top in the Soviet Union. He started at the European Championships in Katowice in spring and was also European champion there for the first time . The most famous athletes he beat were Marin Kolew from Bulgaria and Andrzej Skrzydlewski from Poland. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , Nikolai Jakowenko wanted to win the gold medal that he had missed in 1968. With five wins he was on his way to this medal and met Nicolae Martinescu in the final battle , whom he had always defeated in previous competitions. In the Olympic final, of all places, he lost to Martinescu and had to be content with the silver medal again. Incidentally, it was the only fight he lost at the Olympic Games and the World and European Championships in which he participated.

After that, Nikolai Jakowenko was no longer at the start in any international championship. He was replaced in the Soviet Union by Nikolai Balboschin . He became a successful wrestling coach and was responsible for the Russian national wrestling team in the Greco-Roman style from 1973 to 1980. After that he was a trainer at the Rostov-on-Don Army Sports Club until 1985. From 1985 he worked at the Moscow University of Railway Engineering.

International success

year	space	competition	Weight class	Results
1967	2.	"Ivan Poddubny" tournament in Moscow	Semi-difficult	behind Wassili Merkulow , USSR a . in front of Ferenc Kiss , Hungary , Aimo Mypenpää , Finland , Wassili Kot, USSR u. Stefan Petrow , Bulgaria
1967	1.	World Cup in Bucharest	Semi-difficult	with victories over Franz Winkler, Austria , Tore Hem, Norway , Ferenc Kiss a. Nicolae Martinescu , Romania a . Draw against Bojan Radew , Bulgaria a. Per Svensson , Sweden
1968	silver	OS in Mexico City	Semi-difficult	with victories over Takeshi Nagao, Japan , Edward Millard, Canada , Wacław Orłowski , Poland a . Nicolae Martinescu et al. a draw against Bojan Radew
1969	1.	Summer Spartakiade of friendly armies of the social states in Kiev	Heavy
1969	1.	World Cup in Mar del Plata	Heavy	with victories over Ernie Fulton, Canada, Lennart Eriksson , Sweden a. Nicolae Martinescu et al. a draw against Stefan Petrow
1970	2.	Intern. Tournament in Klippan / Sweden	Heavy	behind Per Svensson u. before Nicolae Martinescu
1970	3.	World Cup in Edmonton	Heavy	with victories over Shizuo Yada, Japan, William Benko, Canada a. Willie Williams, USA a . Draw against Ferenc Kiss u. Per Svensson
1972	3.	"Ivan Podubbny" tournament in Minsk	Heavy	behind Nikolai Balboschin u. Ewgeni Artjuchin, bde. USSR
1972	1.	EM in Katowice	Heavy	with victories over Marin Kolew , Bulgaria, Aimo Mypenpää, Nahit Taser, Tunisia , Petar Cucic , Yugoslavia , Leif Nordstöm, Sweden u. Andrzej Skrzydlewski , Poland
1972	silver	OS in Munich	Heavy	with victories over Rudolf Lüscher, Switzerland , Tore Hem, Burke Deadrich, USA, Christo Iwanow , Bulgaria a. Andrzej Skrzydlewski u. a loss to Nicolae Martinescu

Soviet championships

year	space	Weight class	Results
1961	1.	Welter	before W. Jegorow and W. Ivankin
1965	3.	medium	behind Anatoly Kirov and Omar Bliadze
1966	3.	Semi-difficult	behind Vasily Merkulow and Alexej Karmazkich
1969	1.	Heavy	before Wassili Merkulow and W. Rudik

Explanations

• all competitions in Greco-Roman style
• OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship
• Weight classes up to 1968: Welter up to 78 kg, medium up to 87 kg and semi-heavy up to 97 kg; Heavy weight from 1969 up to 100 kg body weight

literature

• Athletics magazine from 1967 to 1972,
• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships , 1976,
• Website "www.iat.uni-leipzig.de"

Web links

• Nikolai Jakowenko in the database of the University of Leipzig
• Nikolai Iwanowitsch Jakowenko in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )