Valery Vladimirovich Popenchenko

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Valery Vladimirovich Popentschenko ( Russian Валерий Владимирович Попенченко ; born August 26, 1937 in Tashkent , † February 15, 1975 in Moscow ) was a Soviet boxer . He was Olympic champion in 1964 and European champion in 1963 and 1965 in the middleweight division.

Career

Valery Popentschenko grew up in Tashkent and started boxing there in 1949. His trainer in Tashkent was Yuri Matulewitsch, to whom he owed his first successes as a youth and junior boxer in Tashkent and Uzbekistan .

After graduating from school in 1955, Valery Popentschenko went to Leningrad and joined the Soviet border troops, who were then under the state security, as an officer candidate. He therefore became a member of the sports club "Dynamo" Leningrad. At Dynamo Leningrad, Grigory Kusnik became his coach. In 1958 Valery Popentschenko won the middleweight division of Leningrad and won the right to start the 1959 Soviet championships. In these championships, which were held as part of the 1st Spartakiad of the Soviet Union , he immediately won the title ahead of Yevgeny Feofanov , which was to become one of its main competitors in the Soviet Union in the next few years. In 1959 Valery Popentschenko also made his first international starts. One of them took him to Dortmund , where he won points over the Stuttgart Eberhard Radzik as part of an international match between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union in the middleweight division .

The tough competition from Yevgeny Feofanov was already evident at the Soviet championship in 1960, which was also considered an elimination for the Olympic Games in Rome, when Valery Popentschenko lost in the semifinals to Feofanov and therefore only came third in this championship. Feofanov went to Rome. In another match between the FRG and the Soviet Union, which took place in Moscow , he met Emil Schulz from Kaiserslautern for the first time and defeated him on points.

In 1961 Valery Popentschenko turned the tables at the Soviet championship, because he defeated Yevgeny Feofanov on points in the semifinals and became Soviet champion for the second time by defeating Anatoly Koromyslow in the final. At the European Championships this year in Belgrade , however, Yevgeny Feofanov was used in the middleweight division.

In 1962 Valery Popentschenko became Soviet champion for the third time. He defeated Alexei Kisseljow in the final battle . International championships did not take place this year.

After winning again the title at the Soviet championship in 1963, where he defeated Alexei Kisselev again in the final battle, he was then used for the first time at a major international championship, the European championship in Moscow. Valeri Popentschenko won there in the quarterfinals over the Italian Maurro by giving up in the first round, defeated the Yugoslav Dragoslav Jakovljević on points and won the European title by a demolition victory in the second round over Ion Monea from Romania . After this championship there was an international match between Poland and the Soviet Union in Łódź . Valery Popentschenko suffered his first and only defeat in an international fight against Tadeusz Walasek when Walasek was awarded a controversial 2-1 point win.

Valery Popentschenko was also Soviet champion in the 1964 Olympic year and had thus qualified for a start at the Olympic Games in Tokyo . In Tokyo he presented himself well prepared and in excellent shape. He successively defeated Sultan Mahmoud from Pakistan by knockout in the first round, Joe Darkey from Ghana on points and in the revenge Tadeusz Walasek by knockout in the third round. In the final he faced Emil Schulz , whom he hit hard immediately and knocked out in the first round. Seldom has a boxer won an Olympic victory so convincingly. Valery Popentschenko therefore became extremely popular in the Soviet Union because of his achievements.

1965 was Valery Popen's last year of boxing. He was again Soviet champion and represented his country at the European Championships in Berlin (East). He showed his enormous strength in this championship too. He won in the round of 16 over Rudi Hornig from West Berlin on points and then defeated Karall from Austria by knockout in the first round, was the winner of the semi-finals in the first round over Lucjan Slovakiewicz from Poland and in the final beat the Englishman Robinson in the first round KO.

After finishing his boxer career, Valery Popentschenko left the border troops in Leningrad and began studying engineering in Moscow. After graduation, worked at an institute of construction in Moscow. There he was tragically killed on February 15, 1975. While inspecting a shell, he slipped and fell into a deep stairwell, where he died on the spot. He was buried in Moscow in the Vvedenskoye cemetery .

Valery Popentschenko was very popular in the Soviet Union. Hardly any other boxer has achieved his victories at the international championships as superior as he.

International battles

Soviet middleweight championships from 1959 to 1965

  • 1959: 1st Valeri Popentschenko, 2nd Yevgeny Feofanow , 3rd R. Akopew,
  • 1960: 1. Evgeni Feofanow, 2. Dan Pozniak , 3. Valeri Popentschenko a. Anatoly Koromyslow ,
  • 1961: 1. Valeri Popentschenko, 2. Anatoli Koromyslow, 3. V. Novitschkow a. Yevgeny Feofanov,
  • 1962: 1. Valeri Popentschenko, 2. Alexei Kisseljow , 3. G. Solomonow a. Jan Rowitsch,
  • 1963: 1. Valeri Popentschenko, 2. Alexei Kiseljow, 3. I. Evstignejew a. A. Nefedow,
  • 1964: 1. Valeri Popentschenko, 2. I. Evstignejew, 3. V. Umbrast a. E. Kaufman,
  • 1965: 1. Valeri Popentschenko, 2. Jan Rowitsch, 3. I. Yestignejew a. E. Kaufman

swell

  • “Box Sport” trade journal from 1959 to 1965
  • BOX ALMANACH 1920 - 1980, publisher of the German Amateur Boxing Association, 1980
  • Website "www.sport.komplett.de"
  • "Amateur-boxing.strefa.pl" website
  • Website "www.peooples.ru"

Web link
personal data
SURNAME Popentschenko, Valery Vladimirovich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION soviet boxer
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Tashkent
DATE OF DEATH 15th February 1975
Place of death Moscow