PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: weight lifting

Halil Mutlu is a Turkish weight lifter and world record-holder who won three consecutive Olympic gold medals (1996, 2000, and 2004). Though standing a diminutive 1.5 metres (4 feet 11 inches) and weighing...

Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev was a Soviet weightlifter, arguably the greatest super heavyweight lifter of all time. Between 1970 and 1978 he set some 80 world records and won two Olympic gold medals. Alekseyev...

Tommy Kono was an American weightlifter who won Olympic and world championship medals in three different weight divisions. Kono and his parents were among the Japanese Americans interned at Tule Lake,...

Naim Süleymanoğlu was a Bulgarian-born Turkish weightlifter who dominated the sport in the mid-1980s and ’90s. Süleymanoğlu, the son of a miner of Turkish descent, began lifting weights at age 10, and...

Leonid Ivanovich Zhabotinsky was a Soviet weightlifter who won gold medals in the heavyweight class (+90 kg [+198 pounds]) at the 1964 Toyko and 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and set 19 world records...

Miyake Yoshinobu is a Japanese weightlifter who won three Olympic medals, including two golds, in the 1960s. Standing just over 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall, Miyake was introduced to weightlifting while attending...

Arkady Vorobyev was a weightlifter who won two Olympic gold medals and was the first Soviet light-heavyweight lifter to win the world championship. While stationed at Odessa in the Soviet army, Vorobyev...

Charles Vinci was an American weightlifter who won two Olympic gold medals. A native of Cleveland, Vinci, who stood 4 feet 11 inches (1.5 meters) tall, won seven U.S. weightlifting titles in the bantamweight...