Paul Anderson (weightlifter)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
October 17, 1932 , U.S. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | August 15, 1994 (aged 61) Vidalia, Georgia, U.S. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 9.5 in (177 cm) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 360 lb (163 kg) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Glenda Garland (m. 1960; his death 1994) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Olympic weightlifting, strongman, powerlifting | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Medal record
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paul Edward Anderson (October 17, 1932 – August 15, 1994) was an American weightlifter, strongman, and powerlifter. He was an Olympic gold medalist and a World Champion and two-time National Champion in Olympic weightlifting. Anderson played a big part in the manifestation of powerlifting as a competitive sport. He is considered to be one of the strongest men in recorded history for his mostly unbeaten feats of strength.
Anderson was born in , the only son of Ethel Bennett and Robert Anderson. As a teenager, he began his early weight training on his own in his family's backyard to increase his size and strength so that he would be able to play on the Toccoa High School football team, where he earned a position as first-team blocking back. He used special homemade weights that his father created out of concrete poured into a wooden form. Anderson later attended Furman University for one year on a football scholarship before moving to Elizabethton, Tennessee with his parents. There he met weightlifter Bob Peoples, who would greatly influence him in squat training and introduce him into weightlifting circles.
In 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Anderson, as winner of the USA National Amateur Athletic Union Weightlifting Championship, traveled to the Soviet Union, where weightlifting was a popular sport, for an international weightlifting competition. In a newsreel of the event shown in the United States the narrator, Bud Palmer, commented as follows: "Then, up to the bar stepped a great ball of a man, Paul Anderson." Palmer said, "The Russians snickered as Anderson gripped the bar which was set at 402.5 pounds, an unheard-of lift. But their snickers quickly changed to awe and all-out cheers as up went the bar and Anderson lifted the heaviest weight overhead of any human in history." "We rarely have such weights lifted," said the solemn Russian announcer as Anderson hoisted 402.41 lb (182.53 kg). in the two-hand press. Prior to Anderson's lift, the Soviet champion, Alexey Medvedev, had matched the Olympic record of the time with a 330.5 lb (149.9 kg) press. Anderson then did a 402.5 lb (182.6 kg) press. At a time when Americans were engaged in symbolic Cold War battle with the Soviet Union, Anderson's strength—and his singular, tank-like appearance became a rallying cry to all.
...
Wikipedia