Topic: SELECT COMPANY

[michael murphy]

I am not absolutely sure about this but I would put John Terpak in this group. John T. won a National Title in the lightheavy class in 1947. I think John was 35 at this time. Joe Mills was six weeks short of 34 when he won his National Title in 1942.

I may stand to be corrected about Terpak but the more I think about it I think he belongs in this select company. Terpak also won the World Championships that year (854 total) but the Russian team did not particpate meaning that the phenomenal Ukranian lifter, Gregori Novak (937 total @ '46 Worlds in Paris), was not there. Nonetheless, it was still a great accomplishment for JT to win a World Championship @ 35 years old.

I did now just check S&H quickly and the August 1947 issue states that JT was 35 years of age @ the National Championships (see page 46).

[michael murphy]

John Terpak won a World Championship at age 35. Vasily Alexeev won an Olympic Gold Medal at age 34 at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. I can think of only one lifter that won an Olympic Gold medal that was older than Alexeev. Can anyone name this man? This lifter didn't start lifting weights until the age of 22 while he was in the navy.

[Les Kernodle]

hgere is a shot of John Terpak , I guess at 1947 ( MIchael ?) .. he had won as 165lbr in 1936 then as Michael says came back in 47 to win at 181lbs

[Les Kernodle]

and how could I forget my hero from the 70s Fred Lowe who won in 1981 with an American record C&J of 402 at 165lbs of bodyweight !!!

He like Chris and others mentioned above was 34 years old at the time, and is still going today

[michael murphy]

Les:

There is no question that Fred Lowe is an American Icon in weigthlifting circles. I have never seen Fred lift in person but I have admired his lifting style from viewing the tapes I own.

A word about Terpak's win in 1947 @ the Nationals & Worlds, JT was just slightly over the middleweight limit-under 170 pounds-when he won the lightheavy class. I would need to check this to verify it but I'm quite sure JT won ten national championships in a row before he was defeated then came back in 1947 to win his eleventh national championship. There is no question that JT was the finest technical lifter of his era.

Any idea who won an Olympic Gold medal at age 35-actually this lifter would have turned 36 on October 3rd of that year? His teammate that finished second to him was actually older by two months.

I will post the answer if you don't have a clue.

[Les Kernodle]

Bazowski of poland ?? (sorry I butchered the name and am not totlaly sure , but I do think he started late....?

[michael murphy]

Bazanowski was born in August of 1935 and won Gold Medals in Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968. The lifter I was thinking about was instrumental in the development of Russian W/L.

He started w/l in the spring of 1946 while stationed in the Navy in Odessa. After he left the Navy he trained in Sverdlovsk (now known as Ekaterinburg) in the region of the Ural Mountains. This was where Ivan Lebedev settled in his later years. Lebedev was a student of Krajewski's (trainer of Hackenschmidt & others) in St. Petersburg. Lebedev promoted heavy athletics in the early part of the 20th century in Russia. Krajewski died in 1900.

In the Rome Olympics, Dr. Arcady Vorobyev placed first ahead of teammate, Trofim Lomakin, and the defending 1959 World Champion, Louis Martin.