Sergio Oliva

Sergio Oliva (born July 4, 1941 in Havana , Cuba , † November 12, 2012 in Chicago , United States ) was a Cuban bodybuilder .

Life

Oliva was born in Guanabacoa , a district of the Cuban capital Havana. There he was successful in weightlifting and was sent by the Cuban Weightlifting Association in 1962 to the Central America and Caribbean Games in Kingston / Jamaica . During this trip he left the Cuban team and asked for political asylum at the US consulate.

At first he lived in Miami , later he moved to Chicago . At the time, he made a modest living on TV repairs, but continued to exercise with weights. In 1963 he joined the Duncan YMCA sports club in Chicago and found Bob Gajda to be an excellent weightlifting coach. But soon he devoted himself increasingly to bodybuilding and from 1965 concentrated entirely on this sport. He first started for the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) and then switched to the IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilding & Fitness). From the mid-1960s, he won the Mr. Olympia three times in a row . Only with Arnold Schwarzenegger , with whom he fought a few duels, his success began to wane. In 1969 he won the Mr. Olympia again .

Towards the end of his career, he competed in the associations WABBA and WBBG. In 1984 he made a comeback at the IFBB at the age of 43 and started again at the Mr. Olympia after 12 years of abstinence . There he finally took eighth place. When he finished eighth the following year, he finally retired from competitive sports.

Others

• He played in four films under the pseudonym "Black Power".
• Oliva was a police officer in Chicago.
• He died of kidney failure on November 12, 2012.

successes

• 1966 IFBB Mr. World
• 1967 IFBB Mr. Universe
• 1967 IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 1968 IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 1969 IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 1973 IFBB Mr. International

Web links

• Pictures
• Sergio Oliva in the Internet Movie Database (English)