David Rigert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olympic medal record
Men's Weightlifting
Gold	1976 Montreal	Middle-heavyweight

David Adamovich Rigert (Russian: Давид Адамович Ригерт) (born March 12, 1947 in village Nagornoye, Kokchetav Oblast, Kazakh SSR) was an Olympic weightlifter for the USSR.

Rigert began practising weightlifting on his own in 1966, training by Arkady Vorobyov's book. Two years later, while serving in the Soviet army, Rigert earned the title Master of Sports of the USSR. After demobilisation he lived and trained in Armavir. In 1969 he met the famous Soviet coach Michael Rudolf Plukfelder, who invited him to Shakhty, where Rigert began training at Trud Voluntary Sports Society under Plukfelder. Just eleven months later, in 1970, Rigert made the USSR team and debuted internationally, earning the bronze at the World Championships. In 1971 at the RSFSR Championships Rigert set his first World record, beginning an extraordinary series of 68 World records, overshadowed only by Vasiliy Alekseyev's achievement.

After a disappointing performance at the 1972 Summer Olympics, in 1973 Rigert won in all competition, where he participated, setting eight World records. He won in all World and European Championships between 1973 and 1976 and earned the gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Despite these and other brilliant achievements during his career as a weightlifter, its finish was also disappointing: he scored zero at the 1980 Summer Olympics. This failure's possible cause was Rigert's transfer from his favourite "under 100 kg" category to "under 90 kg".

After finishing his career Rigert moved to Rostov and later to Taganrog. He coached, studied at Moscow Institute of Physical Culture, manufactured weights for weightlifting competitions and built some 100 sports grounds in Taganrog. He also created Weightlifting Center in Taganrog and coached the national Team Russia. In 2004 Rigert was elected deputy of the Taganrog City Council (Duma).

Rigert was awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1976.