26 Facts About Yury Vlasov

Yury Petrovich Vlasov was a Soviet and Russian heavyweight weightlifter, writer and politician.

Yury Vlasov competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in 1960 and a silver in 1964; at both games, he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union.

Yury Vlasov retired in 1968 and became a prominent writer and later a politician.

Yury Vlasov was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and then of the Russian State Duma and took part in the 1996 Russian presidential election.

Yury Vlasov's father worked as the General Consul in Shanghai and then the Ambassador to Burma.

Yury Vlasov studied at the Saratov Suvorov military school, then at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy in Moscow, from which he graduated with honors in 1959.

Yury Vlasov was noticed in 1958 when he finished third at the Soviet Union championships.

Yury Vlasov was proclaimed the best sportsman of the 1960 Olympics and the "Strongest Man on the Planet".

Yury Vlasov was breaking world records at the 1964 Olympics and was aiming to retire from competitions with the gold medal.

In reality Zhabotinsky merely positioned himself behind Yury Vlasov, who started the event first, and in his last attempt would order any weight required to win the overall competition.

At the peak of his popularity Yury Vlasov was frequently included in international delegations visiting foreign leaders, such as Fidel Castro and Charles de Gaulle.

Yury Vlasov did not recall what he said to Schwarzenegger then, but remembered that he was excited after winning the championships and encouraged Schwarzenegger to continue strength training no matter what.

Yury Vlasov was a member of the Union of Soviet Writers and was a member of the Union of Russian Writers.

Yury Vlasov continued training with weights through most of his life.

Yury Vlasov published over 15 novels, most notably the Flaming Cross trilogy about life during and after the Russian Revolution, and more than 10 short story collections.

Yury Vlasov's books were translated into several languages, including English.

In that book, Yury Vlasov uses the pen name of his father, Vladimirov.

Yury Vlasov was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies for the Lublinsky district of Moscow in 1989 and broke from the Communist Party.

In 1993, Yury Vlasov was elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

When he first entered the Duma, Yury Vlasov was a member of the liberal Inter-regional Deputies Group, along with Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly Sobchak and Boris Yeltsin.

Yury Vlasov ran as an independent candidate in the 1996 Russian presidential election.

Yury Vlasov claimed that his politics were a more effective unifying force than communist or democratic ideals.

Yury Vlasov first married in 1957, to Natalia Modorova, a student of the Moscow Institute of Arts who was visiting his gym to draw athletes.

Yury Vlasov underwent several surgeries, with the final surgery occurring in 2019 or 2020.

Yury Vlasov fully recovered some time afterwards, and had no illnesses.

Yury Vlasov died of natural causes on 13 February 2021, in Moscow, Russia.