Yoshinobu Miyake

Yoshinobu Miyake at the 1964 Olympic Games

Yoshinobu Miyake ( Japanese 三 宅 義 信 , Miyake Yoshinobu ; born November 24, 1939 in Murata , Shibata County , Miyagi Prefecture ) is a former Japanese weightlifter and multiple world and Olympic champion.

Career

Yoshinobu Miyake comes from a large family from Tokyo. His father was an engineer. One of his four brothers, Yoshiyuki, who was five years his junior, also became a weightlifter. In 1968, Yoshinobu Miyake became Olympic champion and Yoshiyuki Miyake was third in weightlifting in the featherweight class.

Yoshinobu got into weightlifting through a school friend who knew the then famous weightlifter Katsuragawa and brought him together with Yoshinobu. For the next few years they both trained together without a special trainer. Yoshinobu's performance was soon so good that he was sent to Rome for the 1960 Olympic Games . There he won his first Olympic medal. Until 1972 he belonged to the absolute top of the world, first in bantam and then in featherweight. At the end of his great career, he had won two Olympic gold medals, one silver medal and five world championship titles in all-around competitions. He was almost as successful as the American Thomas Kono , who won one more world title with the same Olympic yield.

Yoshinobu Miyake became a police officer in Tokyo after studying at university and was also the coach of the Japanese national weightlifting team.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championships, Ba = bantamweight, Fe = featherweight)

• 1960, silver medal , OS in Rome , Ba, with 337.5 kg, behind Charles Vinci , USA , 345 kg and in front of Elmkah, Iran , 330 kg;
• 1961, 3rd place , World Championships in Vienna , Ba, with 337.5 kg, behind Wladimir Stogow , USSR , 345 kg, Imre Földi , Hungary , 345 kg and in front of Vinci, 327.5 kg;
• 1962, 1st place , World Championships in Budapest , Ba, with 352.5 kg, ahead of Földi, 337.5 kg and Stogow, 330 kg;
• 1963, 1st place , World Championships in Warsaw , Fe, with 375 kg, ahead of Isaac Berger , USA, 367.5 kg and Földi, 365 kg;
• 1964, gold medal , OS in Tokyo , Fe, with 397.5 kg, ahead of Berger, 382.5 kg and Mieczysław Nowak , Poland , 377.5 kg;
• 1965, 1st place , WM, Fe, with 385 kg, ahead of Nowak, 375 kg and Rudolf Kozłowski , Poland , 360 kg;
• 1966, 1st place , World Championships in Berlin , Fe, with 387.5 kg, ahead of Nowak, 382.5 kg and his brother Yoshiyuki Miyake , 370 kg;
• 1966, 1st place Asian Games in Bangkok , Fe, with 377.5 kg, ahead of An Yong-Chul, South Korea , 360 kg;
• 1968, gold medal , OS in Mexico City , with 392.5 kg, ahead of Dito Schanidze , USSR, 387.5 kg and Yoshiyuki Miyake, 385 kg;
• 1972, 4th place , OS in Munich , with 385 kg, behind Norair Nurikjan , Bulgaria , 402.5 kg, Schanidse, 400 kg and Janos Benedek, Hungary, 390 kg.

World records

(all set up in featherweight)

in two-armed tearing:

• 114.5 kg, 1961 in Nagasaki ,
• 115 kg, 1962 in Tokyo ,
• 117.5 kg, born in Košice in 1962 ,
• 118.5 kg, 1962 in Warsaw ,
• 120 kg, 1963 in Yamaguchi,
• 122.5 kg, 1964 in Niigata,
• 123 kg, 1964 in Tokyo,
• 123.5 kg, 1965 in Košice,
• 125 kg, 1967 in Saitoma,
• 125.5 kg, 1969 in Nagasaki.

in two-armed thrusting:

• 150 kg, 1962 in Okajama,
• 150.5 kg, 1963 in Tokyo,
• 151 kg, 1964 in Tokyo.

in the Olympic three-way battle:

• 375 kg, 1962 in Okajama,
• 377.5 kg, 1963 in Tokyo,
• 380 kg, 1964 in Takasaki,
• 385 kg, 1964 in Niigata,
• 387.5 kg, 1964 in Estaki,
• 397.5 kg, 1964 in Tokyo,
• 400 kg, 1969 in Matsura.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Short portrait of Yoshinobu Miyake with many pictures