For which the Soviet fighter-hero Yarygin from Siberia was nicknamed Ivan the Terrible

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Once upon a time, power sports were dominated by true heroes who did not stake money or popularity. As for the world wrestling carpet, one of the best at one time was the Siberian Ivan Yarygin. The Siberian wrestler, who was given Olympic gold more than once, became famous not only for victories. He showed the whole world Russian character, honor and dignity. For his aggressive and powerful fighting style, Yarygin was called "Ivan the Terrible". He left on his shoulder blades all, without exception, rivals in the most prestigious international competitions. His record can now only be repeated.

Childhood in hard work

Ivan Yarygin was born and spent his childhood in the Kemerovo wilderness. The family of a simple blacksmith had 10 children. Everyone had to work hard to survive. Older children, in particular Ivan, were accustomed to hard physical labor in the village from an early age. The future champion stood out from the rest with above average growth, endurance and tenacity. By the age of 15, he easily fought adult stocky fellow villagers. After the large family moved to Krasnoyarsk, the guy became interested in football.

Parents did not particularly support their son in his sports endeavors, seeing his future in collective farm labors. Without neglecting work, Ivan devoted every free minute to sports. After graduating from school, he went to DOSAAF for a driver's course. There he was noticed by the director of the school of wrestlers Charkov. An experienced athlete unmistakably discerned the makings of a natural-born fighter in an energetic stocky youth. Despite his passion for football, Yarygin agreed to visit Charkov's gym. He grasped the essence of the struggle at a meeting, no longer parting with this sport for the rest of his life.

Army and style grinding

In 1966, Yarygin moved to Krasnoyarsk for training. An innate tenacity and desire to show the best results contributed to the rapid progress. Ivan was never late for training, not to mention passes. He polished wrestling technique, being as responsible as possible to everything that he undertook. His coach agreed with the city military registration and enlistment office so that the athlete who has reached military age was left to serve in Krasnoyarsk. After all, interrupting training at the peak would be a crime. While serving, Ivan won the sambo championship of the Armed Forces, became a master of sports in this kind of wrestling. After demobilization, Yarygin concentrated his forces on freestyle wrestling, very quickly entering the pantheon of the world's strongest athletes.

Golden triumphs

Having started to train professionally in 1966 under the supervision of Dmitry Mindiashvili, 4 years later Yarygin received the title of USSR champion. The first victories in the youth championships were given playfully. In the final of his first all-Union competition, Yarygin defeated European champion Vladimir Gulutkin. Soon the coach agreed on joint training of Ivan with the legendary Belarusian Medved. Later, the eminent wrestler recalled that Yarygin was engaged in extremely concentrated work, absorbing every recommendation like a sponge. Among the budding champions, he had no equal either on the training mat or in any competition.

When forming the Soviet team to perform at the Munich Olympics, the coaching council could not make a unanimous decision in any way. On the one hand, promising, full of strength Yarygin with an individual daring style, on the other hand, proven experienced wrestlers. But after Mindiashvili vouched for the pupil, Ivan nevertheless went to Munich. The decision, to put it mildly, he justified. The wrestler simply won every fight, replenishing the Soviet piggy bank with Olympic gold. He set a speed record by beating the strongest opponents. That indicator of Yarygin (7 minutes 20 seconds for 7 opponents) was never beaten. After the Olympic triumph, Ivan won even easier at the World and European Championships. But at some point the wrestler exhausted his strength and his results began to decline. Having left for his native village to recover in the bosom of the taiga, he soon returned to the big sport.

The Soviet sports leadership already without a doubt sent Yarygin to the next Olympics, and he won, even despite the serious injury. Having broken two ribs on the eve of the competition, he hid this one from the doctors and even the coach, stepping onto the carpet through severe pain. Then, at the close of the Games, he was entrusted with carrying the flag of the Soviet national team. But the Moscow Olympics-80 was marked differently in the champion's career.

Soviet national team and mysticism

At the allied sports day in 1979, Ivan Yarygin, unexpectedly for everyone, lost in a fight to his own student Ilya Mate. Having every chance to represent the USSR at the upcoming Olympics, the titled wrestler makes an important decision: to transfer the right to participate in the Games to the athlete who defeated him. Such departure from the carpet showed the whole sports world the qualities of justice and honor inherent in Yarygin. But having stopped performing and giving way to young talents, Ivan did not plan to part with sports. At 34, he headed the Soviet freestyle wrestling team, occupying this place for the next 12 years and from the 93rd became the head of the Wrestling Federation.

His players unanimously said that Yarygin was an amazingly generous coach. He shared with young wrestlers all his personal best practices, which he had been pursuing for many years, and showed his exclusive techniques. And most of all he rejoiced at the success of Ilya Mate, who became the Olympic champion. In the entire history of the national team, the wrestlers did not show such results as under the leadership of Yarygin. The coach also enjoyed authority outside the carpet. All close and casual acquaintances noted the extraordinary nobility and restraint of this person. Yarygin expressed his extreme displeasure with his hands folded across his chest. His contemporaries called the only drawback Ivan's penchant for gambling. According to friends, once Yarygin managed to raise a solid jackpot over 100 thousand. He took the money he received and distributed it to friends and neighbors.

The men of the Yarygin family, for some mystical no coincidence, were accompanied by tragedies. First, the athlete's father left prematurely, then, under strange circumstances, two of Ivan's brothers died, and his own son miraculously escaped in a car accident. But Yarygin himself did not manage to survive in a road accident. The athlete died driving his own car at the age of 48, having rammed a standing truck.

It is not for nothing that Russian heroes were famous throughout the world for their strength. For example, the famous Alexander Zass not only he carried a horse from the battlefield and caught people from a cannon, but also became the creator of the exercise system, which is still popular today.