Gennady Ivanchenko

Posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2011 by John Wood

Gennady Ivanchenko, the great Russian weightlifter, was the first light-heavyweight lifter ever to surpass the 500 kg total. This famous shot, taken by Tommy Kono, shows Ivanchenko doing snatch pulls at a training session prior to the 1971 Sr. European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria (where Ivanchenko, unsurprisingly, took gold). You can probably see why Ivanchenko’s nickname was “The Robot.”