Kolumbet, Nikolai Fedorovich

Nikolay Kolumbet was born on October 10, 1933 in the village of Gorenichi, Kiev region . He began to actively engage in cycling in early childhood, following the example of his father Fyodor Petrovich, who also performed at the time in road cycling. Later he trained under the guidance of coach Yuri Alexandrovich Gammerstedt , was in several Kiev sports clubs and societies.

He achieved the first serious success in 1954, when he took part in the spring multi-day race “Kiev - Simferopol - Kiev” with a length of 2,600 kilometers and closed the top ten in the individual competition. Later this season he performed at the USSR Championship in Tallinn, where he received bronze in the team race with a separate start of 100 km and won the 200 km group race. A year later, he won the fifteenth stage of the Tour of the USSR , became the third in the general classification of the Kyiv-Simferopol-Kiev stage race.

In 1956, he became the first Soviet cyclist to win the “ Peace Cycle Race ” stage - he won the fourth stage in Wroclaw, taking third place in the final standings. At the same time, the USSR national team won first place in the team classification, and for this outstanding achievement all team members were awarded the honorary title “ Honored Master of Sports of the USSR ”. Thanks to a series of successful performances, Columbet also won the right to defend the country's honor at the Summer Olympics in Melbourne , however, he could not be among the prize winners: he finished sixteenth in the individual competition, while in the team competition with Anatoly Cherepovich , Victor Kapitonov and Viktor Vershinin was the sixth.

He spent the season of 1957 no less successfully: he won the second stage of the multi-day Tour of Sochi race, settling down in the general classification on the fourth line, and won two gold medals at the USSR championship on the track (in individual and team pursuit races).

The following season, he again performed at the “Tour of Sochi”, won the third and fourth stages, after which he took the second position in the overall standings, losing the lead only to Yevgeny Klevtsov . At the World Race, he was the bronze medalist in the second and fifth stages, while the Soviet team again became the best in the team event. At the World Road Championships in French Reims, the thirty-third result showed in individual discipline. Also won the next title of champion of the USSR on the track (in the team pursuit).

In 1959, for the third time in the Soviet team, he won the World Cycle Race, although in the individual competition he was placed only on the thirty-eighth line.

After completing his sports career, Nikolai Kolumbet switched to coaching, prepared many talented athletes, including 56 masters of sports and 54 champions at the All-Union Championships. In particular, his pupils were the Olympic champion of 1972 in tandem Igor Tselovalnikov , the winner of the World Cycle Race and the multiple champion of the USSR Anatoly Starkov . Recognized as Honored Coach of the Ukrainian SSR, awarded with medals " For Labor Valor " and "For the Development of the Olympic Movement" ^[1] .

In recent years, he lived in the village of Bremenskoye, Chernihiv Oblast , and occasionally took part in veteran cycling competitions. He died on February 21, 2012. Annually in Donetsk , the Criterium Memorial of Nicholas Columbet ^[2] .

He was married, there are two children. His younger brother Leonid was a fairly well-known track cyclist, a bronze medalist of the Olympic Games and a world champion in team pursuit races.

• All about sports: a Handbook, V.1, 2 ed., Ext. - Moscow, 1978

• Nikolai Columbet on Cycling Archives (eng.)
• Nikolai Columbet - Olympic statistics on the site Sports-Reference.com (eng.)