Valentin Grigoryevich Olenik

Valentin Grigoryevich Olenik ( Russian Валентин Григорьевич Олейник ; born July 18, 1939 in Stalinsk ; † February 15, 1987 ) was a Soviet wrestler . He was a silver medalist at the 1968 Olympics and world champion in 1966 in the Greco-Roman style middleweight division.

Career

Valentin Grigoryevich Olenik began wrestling as a teenager and belonged to the Spartak Novokuznetsk sports club . He focused entirely on the Greco-Roman style. No results are known from his junior years. In 1964 he became the Soviet middleweight champion and also took 1st place in the " Ivan Poddubny " tournament in Moscow, which is extremely important for the nomination for the international championships .

He was then used in the middleweight division at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics . In Tokyo he won over Lothar Metz from the GDR , Czesław Kwieciński from Poland and Wayne Baugham from the United States. He tied against Gheorghe Popovici from Romania and Branislav Simić from Yugoslavia . He had the bad luck that he had to retire before the final because of exceeding the permissible number of faults and ended up in 4th place, while Simić was Olympic champion .

Valentin Olenik also won the "Ivan Poddubny" tournament in the middleweight division in 1965, ahead of Alexander Jurkewitsch and Rimantas Bagdonas from the USSR . But not he, but Bagdonas was used this year at the World Championships in Tampere , who also became world champion there.

In 1966 he was back at the World Cup in Toledo (Ohio) . There he defeated the world class wrestlers Stig Persson from Sweden , Petar Krumow from Bulgaria , Włodzimierz Smoliński from Poland , Ion Țăranu from Romania and the surprise man Franz Pötsch from Austria . In the final, he faced the Turkish ex-world champion Tevfik Kış , against whom a draw was enough to win the title.

In 1967, Valentin Olenik took second place at the "Ivan Poddubny" tournament in the middleweight division behind Alexander Jurkewitsch. But he was given preference over this one at the World Championships this year in Bucharest . In Bucharest he won over Pentti Punkari from Finland , Mehmet Uçar from Turkey and Wacław Orłowski from Poland . Against Venko Zinzarow from Bulgaria and Gheorghe Popovici he wrestled in a draw. According to the regulations at that time, after the 5th round there was the peculiarity that all wrestlers were eliminated due to the frequent "draws" for which a wrestler was charged with 2 or 2.5 missing points, with the exception of one, László Sillai from Hungary . Because of this, Valentin Olenik “only” became vice world champion , without still having the opportunity to fight against Sillai for the world title.

In 1968, Valentin Olenik took part in the Olympic Games in Mexico City for the second time. He also remained undefeated in Mexico City, beating Julio Graffigna from Argentina , Jiří Kormaník from the CSSR , Czesław Kwieciński from Poland and Wayne Baugham each on points. Against Petar Krumow and Branislav Simić from Yugoslavia , he wrestled in a draw. After the sixth round, all wrestlers, including Olenik, had reached 6 points with which one had to be eliminated, with the exception of Lothar Metz from the GDR. This had only accumulated 5 points of failure in his fights. He was Olympic champion and did not have to compete against Olenik, who won the silver medal .

After these Olympic Games, Waltentin Olenik was no longer used in any international championships. In the Soviet Union , Valeri Resanzew dominated his weight class from 1970 .

In the four championship tournaments (two Olympic Games and two World Championships) in which he participated, Walentin Olenik played a total of 22 fights, none of which he lost. The fact that he did not go off the mat more often as a world champion or as an Olympic champion was always due to the fact that up to 1966 he always fought a "draw" once too often.

International success

year	space	competition	Weight class
1964	1.	"Ivan Poddubny" tournament in Moscow	medium	before Petar Cucić , Yugoslavia and Prehenosil, CSSR
1964	4th	OS in Tokyo	medium	with victories over Lothar Metz , GDR , Czesław Kwieciński , Poland and Wayne Baugham , USA and a draw against Gheorghe Popovici , Romania and Branislav Simić , Yugoslavia
1965	1.	"Ivan Poddubny" tournament in Moscow	medium	before Alexander Jurkewitsch and Rimantas Bagdonas , both USSR
1966	1.	World Cup in Toledo (Ohio)	medium	with victories over Stig Persson , Sweden , Petar Krumow , Bulgaria , Włodzimierz Smoliński , Poland, Ion Țăranu , Romania and Franz Pötsch , Austria and a draw against Tevfik Kış , Turkey
1967	2.	"Ivan Poddubny" tournament in Moscow	medium	behind Alexander Jurkewitsch, USSR, in front of Lothar Metz, Petar Krumow, Nikolai Tarasow, USSR and Branislav Simić
1967	2.	World Cup in Bucharest	medium	with wins over Pentti Punkari , Finland , Mehmet Ucar, Turkey and Wacław Orłowski , Poland and a draw against Wenko Zinzarow , Bulgaria and Gheorghe Popovici
1968	1.	"Ivan Poddubny" tournament in Moscow	medium	before Valeri Resanzew and Gaforow, both USSR, Bertil Nyström , Sweden and Prehenosil, CSSR
1968	silver	OS in Mexico City	medium	with victories over Julio Graffigna, Argentina , Jiří Kormaník , CSSR, Czesław Kwieciński and Wayne Baugham and a draw against Petar Krumow and Branislav Simić
1970	1.	Klippan tournament	Semi-difficult	before Lothar Metz , Sven Olsson, Sweden and Dieter Heuer , GDR
1971	2.	Klippan tournament	Semi-difficult	behind Lennart Persson, Sweden, in front of Wlodzimierz Smolinksi

Note: all competitions in the Greco-Roman style, OS = Olympic Games, World Cup = World Championship, middleweight, until 1968 up to 87 kg body weight, light heavyweight, from 1969 up to 90 kg body weight

swell

• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships, 1976
• Athletics magazine
• Database of the Institute for Applied Training Sciences at the University of Leipzig

Web links

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