Olenik, Valentin Grigorievich

Born in 1939 in the village of Bungur ^[2] near Stalin (now Novokuznetsk ). After graduating from the Bungur seven-year school, he studied at the vocational school No. 1 and, having received the profession of a roller maker, worked at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant . He began to engage in wrestling in 1954. In 1957, Kuzbass took first place at the youth championship. In 1960, he won the All-Union Championship of the sports society "Labor Reserves". In 1962 he joined the USSR national team ^[2] Having convincingly won the Ivan Poddubny tournament, he was included in the Olympic team .

At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, he fought in the weight category up to 87 kilograms (average weight). The winner is determined by the minimum number of penalty points: no penalty points were awarded for a clear victory ( carcass ), 1 penalty point was awarded for victory by decision of the judges; 4 penalty points were awarded for a net loss; 3 penalty points were awarded for a points loss; 2 penalty points for a draw. The athlete who received 6 penalty points before the final bouts was eliminated from the tournament. When there were three or fewer wrestlers left, they played medals among themselves.

In battles:

• in the first round in a fight with Gheorghe Popovici ( Romania ), a draw was recorded, which brought the fighter 2 penalty points;
• in the second round, by a decision of the judges, he won against Cheslaw Kwiecinski ( Poland ) and received 1 penalty point;
• in the third round, he won by a decision of the judges against Lothar Metz ( GDR ) and received 1 penalty point;
• in the fourth round he defeated Wayne Bohman ( USA ) by the decision of the judges and received 1 penalty point.
• in the fifth round in a fight with Branislav Simic , the future Olympic champion ( Yugoslavia ), a draw was recorded, which brought the wrestler 2 penalty points and the Soviet wrestler dropped out of the tournament, taking 4th place.

In 1966, he won the World Cup and remained second in the USSR Championship, and in 1967 he became vice world champion and winner of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, competitions in which had the status of the USSR Championship.

He was included in the Olympic team . At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he fought in the weight category up to 87 kilograms (average weight). The winner is determined by the minimum number of penalty points: no penalty points were awarded for a clear victory ( carcass ), 1 penalty point was awarded for victory by decision of the judges; 4 penalty points were awarded for a net loss; 3 penalty points were awarded for a points loss; 2 penalty points for a draw. The athlete who received 6 penalty points before the final bouts was eliminated from the tournament. When there were three or fewer wrestlers left, they played medals among themselves.

In battles:

• in the first round in the 2nd minute, Julio Graffinha ( Argentina ) was stewing;
• in the second round, he won by a decision of the judges Jiri Kormanik ( Czechoslovakia ) and received 1 penalty point;
• in the third round, he won by a decision of the judges against Cheslaw Kwiecinski ( Poland ) and received 1 penalty point;
• in the fourth round in a fight with Petar Krumov ( Bulgaria ) a draw was recorded, which brought the fighter 2 penalty points;
• in the fifth lap on the 11th minute he touched Wayne Bohman ( USA )

Thus, the wrestler reached the final part of the competition, having 4 penalty points.

In a fight with Branislav Simic ( Yugoslavia ) again, as at the previous Olympics, a draw was recorded, and V. Olenik won a silver medal. ^[one]

In 1972, he left his sports career and joined the USSR Sports Committee as head of the wrestling department, and later became a state coach in classical wrestling. In 1976, he was the head of the Olympic wrestling team at the Montreal Olympics , where Soviet wrestlers showed outstanding results - out of ten sets of medals they won 7 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze medal. Then he worked in VNIIFK as the head of the Olympic training department, from 1978 to 1985 in the USSR Sports Committee as head of the sports reserves department. Since 1985 he was the head of the Department of Physical Education of the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers ^[3]

Since 1975, Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Union Federation of Wrestling; since 1981, member of the FILA Coaching Commission (International Amateur Wrestling Federation).

He graduated from the Siberian Metallurgical Institute (Mining Department) and correspondence postgraduate studies at VNIIFC , during the course of training he recently prepared a study on the problem of improving the technical skill of highly qualified wrestlers (1968). In 1973 he defended his thesis. He participated in the creation of more than 50 articles and teaching aids on the problems of training highly qualified wrestlers.

Valentin Olenik is one of four Soviet world champions in classical or freestyle wrestling with a degree .

He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (1976).

In 1985, he had a serious car accident. He died in 1987 in Moscow. He was buried at the Vostryakovsky cemetery ^[4] .

In Novokuznetsk , the traditional All-Russian tournament of masters in Greco-Roman wrestling in memory of Valentin Olenik is held.

• Valentin Olenik - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
• Valentin Olenik - profile on the International Wrestling Database website