Melbourne Australia Archives - www.oldtimestrongman.com

Gholamreza Takhti

Posted on Friday, November 10th, 2017 by John Wood

Gholamreza Takhti was the greatest wrestler in Iranian history. He won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. He also won Silver medals at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and the 1960 Games in Rome. To build his strength and upper body endurance, he trained in the traditional methods, as is pictured here, finishing up a workout with the light Meels.

Marian Zieliński

Posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2016 by John Wood

Marian Zieliński, the Polish weightlifter who took part in four Olympic games, is shown here in mid-press. Zieliński was the first Polish athlete to win an Olympic weightlifting medal when he took Bronze as a featherweight at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia. At the 1960 Games in Rome he tried moving up to the lightweight class and finished fourth.

As a lightweight, he won two more Bronze medals, in Tokyo, 1964 and Mexico City, in 1968. Zieliński was also a three-time European champion and seven-time Polish Champion.

Pete George’s Press

Posted on Friday, May 31st, 2013 by John Wood

How outstanding is this picture? Shown here is Pete George’s final press of 122.5 kg at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic game… enough to put him in the lead, at least temporarily. George had to settle for silver though as a few minutes later he was overtaken by Fyodor Bogdanovsky of the Soviet Union who eventually took the gold with a 420 kg total (75kg weight class.) If you look very closely, you can see Bob Hoffman in the crowd.

1956 Olympic Weightlifting: The Bantamweights

Posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2012 by John Wood

1956 Olympics Batamweights

A look at the medal platform for the 1956 Olympic Weightlifting Bantamweight class: American lifter Chuck Vinci took gold (with a 342.5 kg total ~ an Olympic record), Vladimir Stogov from the Soviet Union took the silver medal (with a 337.5 kg total) and Mahmoud Namdjou of Iran, took the bronze (with a 332.5 kg total).