I go out to the heavy projectile

With a heavy feeling of tenderness

to him.

We both seem to

made of metal,

But only he really

metal.

And I walked so long to the pedestal,

what a dent in the platform

trodden down.

These lines by Vladimir Vysotsky are about him, about the undefeated champion of Soviet sports, the hardest man in the country, Vasily Alekseev. Vysotsky wrote this poem after a Soviet weightlifter pushed a 500-pound barbell (227.5 kg) at the 1970 World Championships in the United States, thereby setting another world record. Then Vasily Alekseev conquered not only America, but the whole world.

On Friday evening, November 25, sad news overtook us: two-time Olympic champion Vasily Alekseev died in a clinic in Germany. 2 weeks before that, he was sent for treatment to a cardiology clinic in Munich, Germany. Doctors assessed his condition as serious. And now Alekseev was gone.

One of the last interviews in June this year he gave at his home in the city of Shakhty to the correspondent of "RG". Here, in an ordinary one-story house, Alekseev lived, like 20 and 30 years ago.

The silent wife was quietly fiddling in the kitchen and seemed to be just a shadow of the great athlete. But in fact, in this family it is simply not customary to flaunt your feelings. And Vasily Ivanovich, at the very end of the conversation, suddenly admitted casually:

My only wife and beloved. We miss each other when we are apart. Now it is good, there is a telephone, you will call 12 times a day, and it is 12 times, only 24. Next year it will be 50 years since we have been together.

The wife of the strongest man on the planet is like a talisman. Her name is Olympiada. Thanks to her, Alekseev became a multiple champion. When he was asked: "How many times have you won the Olympics?" He answered: "Three. In Munich - zero times, in Montreal - two. And the third - Olympiada Ivanovna".

In 2012, the Alekseevs were waiting for two anniversaries at once - a golden wedding and the 70th anniversary of Vasily Ivanovich. By his birthday he had two wishes - to memorize "Eugene Onegin" and sit down to his memoirs.

RG: Even Vysotsky dedicated a song to you "Weightlifter". "I was doing a short movement with a short evil name" Dash ". Exactly about you. Are you always like that, with character?

Alekseev: In life I am not at all formidable, but fluffy. Many people say to me: you have a difficult character. And on what scales can this be measured? I think I have a normal character. I have a lot of friends, they are drawn to me, and no one considers me to be a difficult person. Someone blinded the image and went ... So much nonsense has been composed about me. They said that in the Soviet years I was starving and bought bread in sacks. Yes, there were few products back then. He lived in Ryazan, where they made such indigestible bread, and so I went to Moscow for fresh loaves. And in order not to dangle every day, he immediately took a bag of Borodinsky. And now I was in Kiev, there Oleg Blokhin made up that I drink milk in liters. I told him: "Oleg, I have never drank milk at all, because for me it is a purgen. Especially before the competition." Can you imagine?

RG: Do you consider yourself rich?

Alekseev: I think. In terms of everything - he is rich in friends, in friends. The family was a success: 2 sons, 4 grandchildren. The sons learned to be lawyers. The youngest, Dmitry, was involved in weightlifting - I taught him myself. But, having become the head coach, I forbade him to study further. Soviet upbringing: so that no one said anything that it was me, the father, who took my son to the training camp, took him abroad. True, later he regretted more than once that he did so. And the eldest, Sergei, was not for sports from the very beginning - he immediately went to study. Received a red diploma, now - a doctor of sciences.

RG: You once invented your own training methodology, there is no such thing anywhere in the world, and then, using your example, proved its effectiveness. But they basically did not want to create their own weightlifting school. Why?

Alekseev: And the authorities have discouraged the desire to train anyone. So many sticks were pushed into the wheels. At first I had to do it, I had to work somewhere after leaving the big sport. But I am a mechanical engineer by education, I did not graduate from either the Institute of Physical Education or the Pedagogical Institute. When I didn’t want to stay in Moscow - I don’t like this city, I went to Shakhty, they told me, let them work with you there. I did not feel any support. And there were dozens of such former champions who were left idle. Many were drunk. Take, for example, Alexei Vakhonin. He, a talented athlete, had neither education nor profession, and eventually went to work in a mine. But the barbell is not the kind of sport where you can swing a shovel for the whole shift and then go to training. It blew once, twice - as a result, I caught a cold, one sick leave, the second, and the person left the race. Gash. Kicked out of the brigade, went to dig graves. Then they fired from there. This is how it ended.

And it was not only him who found themselves in such a situation, a lot of champions - the Rostov region, the former Soviet Union. The main problem was that the attitude towards a person was like a waste material.

Now, maybe the situation is better, not for me to judge. Although there is no sport as such. There is no mass character, there are no sports societies that were under the USSR. I feel like a total orphan: the Trud society, from which I started my career, has died, there are no VDSO trade unions. Where to go? What to lean on? What to remember?

From the dossier "RG"

Vasily Alekseev performed in the absolute weight category, as a member of the USSR national team, he won the 1972 Olympics in Munich and 1976 in Montreal. He was 8-time world champion, 8-time European champion, 7-time USSR champion. Set 80 (!) World records.

David Rigert, weightlifter:

Alekseev and I played for the USSR national team for 12 years, at the training camp we often lived in the same room. A powerful, strong man, he always knew what he wanted. He has developed a whole system of effects of physical activity on the human body. This technique helped him to win. His favorite exercise was the barbell press. To his result in the bench press - 237 kg - and no one could come close.

Gennady Bessonov, weightlifter, national team partner:

He was talented in everything he did. And in sports he is the least talented. Rigert was much more gifted, and some others. And the phenomenal results that Alekseev achieved were only due to work and character. Whenever they returned - from hunting, gatherings - always went to the hall to plow.

After winning in 1976, we were invited to the waiting room of the then President of the United States, Carter. We've been waiting in the waiting room for an hour and a half. And then Vasily got up with the words: "I have such spare parts as the crankcase, a lot in the garage," we laughed, turned around and left. The translator did not understand the meaning of this joke.

There, in America, Kennedy Airport. We ask the policeman where to go. He: "Ah, Rushen - go there." We reach. And there is another policeman: "Rushen?" And shows in the opposite direction. We go to the first policeman, thinking about how to get him in the face. And here Alekseev's calm baritone: "I thought there are fools only in the Soviet Union, but in America it turns out too."

Olga Markina, deputy. director of the Children's and Youth Sports School N 15 named. Vasily Alekseeva:

In 1997, when the Ministry of Sports decided to give the name of Alekseev to our sports school, Vasily Ivanovich took it, as usual, with humor. When he dialed our number, he introduced himself: “The sign“ yours is ringing. ”What a pity that the“ sign ”will never ring again.

When sports schools all over the country began to be transferred to municipalities, he defended himself with his chest. The city is subsidized, and becoming a municipal school means finding yourself for a beggarly existence. But now our school has given 6 candidates for the Olympic team.

Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev was born in the Ryazan region, in the small village of Pokrovo-Shishkino, on January 7, 1942. Vasily was the fourth child in the family of an employee of a local distillery.

In search of a normal income, Alekseev went to the Tyumen region to do logging. Wanting to continue his athletic hobby, Vasily brought all kinds of metal things to the hostel where he lived, equipped them with a crowbar and began to conduct his workouts in the evening. For this "self-righteousness" the young strongman was summoned to the executive committee for a conversation, where he was warned with a fine so that he would not rustle with metal when others were on vacation. After such a collision, Vasily returned to his family and to college studies. I passed the exams well. He had two sons - Sergei and Dmitry. For a strong family nest, a decent salary was needed. And the athlete decides to go to the correspondence department. This gave him the opportunity to move to the small town of Koryazhma and to become a master of the Kotlas pulp and paper mill. Due to her excellent reputation, the correspondence student was promoted to shift supervisor. The wealth in the family grew, and then Alekseev continued weightlifting training. Vasily made the master's rate in just a year. But sports specialists in Arkhangelsk could not believe that a master weightlifter could grow up in a small village, and, accordingly, the title of master was not credited to him. And so he and his family decided to leave for the town of Shakhty (Rostov region), where weightlifters were coached by Rudolf Plukfelder, the Olympic champion. To begin with, he went there without a family to find work and housing.

In this regional city, Vasiliev found both a position at the mine and training in a specialized gym. And on top of that, he submitted papers to the branch of the Novocherkassk Polytechnic University, to the mining faculty. And only with the champion of the Olympics I could not find a common language.

First victories in the national team

And then he decided to train on his own and, moreover, achieved rare indicators.

The training of weightlifters for the Olympics in Mexico City was held in the Caucasus Mountains - in the Tsei Gorge.

He represented the national team in the Friendship Cup international competitions. At the championship in Kiev in March 69, he overtook the second Olympic champion in Mexico City Reading (Belgium), lifting 530 kg.

First failures

Vasily would have needed to maintain strength in his back in 1969, but he was constantly competing. In the end, at the Rostov championship he found himself outside the line of the winners.

The Soviet national team trained for the Warsaw tournament, but the young weightlifter was not invited to it. By the decision of Moscow doctors, he was forbidden to lift the barbell, otherwise he was threatened with disability. Thus, Vasily was out of sight of the masters for 6 months.

With new forces

And the weightlifter, forgotten by all, broke 4 world records in a single evening. On January 24, 1970, in Velikiye Luki, a Soviet strongman at the age of twenty-eight pushed Dube and Bednarsky (USA) out of the world list of record holders and twice exceeded Jabotinsky's level in triathlon.

In March in Minsk, a Soviet weightlifter at the Friendship Cup competition set a one-of-a-kind achievement. With this, a new era of six hundred people started!

In June 1970 the first European weightlifters gathered in Szombathea (Hungary). Alekseev got a little sick, but went to the platform and for the 4th time in 6 months “walked through the achievements”. Jerking 219.5 kg, he crossed out Reading's record, then jerked the usual 170 and pushed 225.5. To the latter, he added a new winning amount - 612.5 kg.

In a competition in the United States of America, Vasily jerked a 500 pound projectile, and he became a pioneer in a similar barbell.

After winning the European Championship in Sofia in 1971, he perfectly defended his diploma and graduated from the university, becoming

Absolute World Champion

On the platform in Vasily Alekseev, he re-achieved the title of absolute world champion.

The triumph in Lima further strengthened Alekseev's prestige. Media workers around the world once again made him one of the best athletes of the year. In addition to this, taking into account the records of Vasily Alekseev, the French Sports Academy gave the Soviet weightlifter the title of "Sportsman No. 1 of 1971". He was awarded the "President's Prize".

The main nominees for the first places came to the 1972 games in Munich with the following results: Alekseev - 645, Patera - 635, Mang - 630, Serge Reading - 620 kg.

After 2 tests, Vasily has 410 kg, and Manga has 395. In the last standings, he pushes 230 kg and makes 640 in total. Jabotinsky's record, which was set in Tokyo, was bypassed by 67.5 kg.

For 2.5 years, weightlifter Vasily Alekseev 54 times exceeded world records. Absolute record holder of 3 European championships, 3 world championships, winner of 20 Olympic Games.

After the Munich Games, the weightlifter is tormented by previous injuries, he is increasingly leaning towards a measured lifestyle. In order to save energy, he takes part in competitions less often. The principle of his training also changed: now there was no need to squeeze out up to 30 tons of metal daily. He took care not of increasing muscle mass, but of its quality indicator. On top of that, the bench press was canceled after the Munich Olympics. The reason for this was Alekseev's triumph of power. Vasily Alekseev again set a record in June 1973 in Madrid at the European Championship. During the same period, he won the World Championship in Cuba (Havana).

In 1974 (in May), the Soviet weightlifter was ahead of everyone in the championship in Verona, took the record in the snatch - 187.5, and again he was the bearer of all world achievements. At the championship in Manila, the Soviet hero overcame 425 kg, throwing Reading 35 kg back.

Plachkov at the age of 22 (Bulgaria) entered the platform, who showed himself by lifting 192.5 kg in the snatch, immediately exceeding Alekseev's achievement by 5 kg. Many fans now preferred the new-born strongman.

12,000 fans who came to Luzhniki witnessed Vasily Alekseev's record: 245.5 in clean and jerk and 427.5 in total. Plachkov beat the world record in the snatch, but failed in the clean and jerk.

Competing in Karaganda, he achieved the title of champion of the Soviet Union for the 7th time. Alekseev Vasily Ivanovich set the 76th world record - 435 kg in biathlon.

At the Montreal Olympics, Bonk started with 165 kg and finished with only 170 kg. Alekseev really wanted to start with 180, but he was convinced with 175 kg. In the 3rd standings, he easily lifted the barbell of 185 kg.

After listening to the coach, Alekseev pushed 230 kg at the beginning. And then - 255. The audience held him for a long time. The applause sounded endless, and Vasily gave them a Russian bow. He refused the third credit.

“Stuttgart Zeitung” on 09/26/1977 reported that for the 8th time the Soviet weightlifter won the title of heavyweight champion.

1.11.77 Alekseev pushed a barbell of 256 kg, showing a new world record.

Only Heuser (1978 world champion) and Rakhmanov (1979 medalist in Thessaloniki) competed on XXII. Rakhmanov won. He was able to reproduce Alekseev's Olympic record in biathlon (440 kg).

What prevented the Soviet weightlifter from winning? Probably, the Soviet strongman did not take into account the main thing - after a long break, weightlifters do not feel the platform. For 2 years Vasily did not take part in any championships, he tried to save his strength for the Moscow Olympics. And this was his huge mistake. He did not remember how to behave in competitions. For 10 years, Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev sat on the throne as the strongest weightlifter on a global scale, but he was forced to make room for the young.

Now head coach

Then he was chosen as the head coach of the Soviet national team. Under him, which can also be attributed to an absolute achievement, not a single member of the team was injured (training was carried out according to a special method) and no one received a "zero" rating. Alekseev left the Soviet national team when the Soviet Union collapsed. This, one might say, ended the sports biography of Vasily Alekseev.

In 1970 Vladimir Vysotsky dedicated the "Song of the Weightlifter" to him. Already Vasily Alekseev has set many world records and inscribed his name in the history of sports. But this was not enough for him. He always wanted to be the best. The best in the world, the best in history.

The first training projectile of the future athlete was ... the axle from the trolley. The boy loved to lift her over his head. And he first saw the barbell only at the age of 19. And the relationship between them somehow did not work out right away: the thin ruffled neck seemed to him very sharp. “I left after the first workout - I didn't like the barbell,- said Vasily Ivanovich in an interview with Dmitry Gordon. - And then they persuaded me to speak for the course, for the faculty, for the entire forestry institute, and by the spring I was already a champion of the course, the institute, and the region. " So he joined in the championship race.

Surprisingly, Vasily Alekseev does not have a single silver or bronze medal in the international arena. If he became a prize-winner, but he became almost always, then he always took gold - at 2 Olympics, 6 European championships and 8 world championships.

Alekseev became the first member of the so-called "club of six hundred", that is, the first weightlifter to reach the 600 kilogram mark in triathlon. The weight seemed inconceivable, but later the Soviet strongman managed to add another 45 kilograms to it. This record is called eternal. Probably, no one really will beat him, since the standing press is excluded from the modern weightlifting program.

Perhaps the most unique achievement of Vasily Alekseev is the very number of world records. The Soviet hero has 80 of them in the piggy bank! Hardly any of the athletes can boast of such success. Among weightlifters, no one has come close to such results and is unlikely to come close. At least modern weightlifting champions give the impression of the people of their time. And Vasily Ivanovich was ahead of his time. World records were not just conquered to him - they did not keep up with him. Alekseev stamped them one after another, as if mocking the prevailing ideas in society about the limit of human capabilities. Fans could not yet move away from his past achievements, and he was already hanging new kilograms on the barbell.

But Vasily Alekseev was by no means a darling of fate, whom nature gave heroic strength and allowed him to easily lift huge weights. On the contrary, there is a tremendous amount of work behind every record. The legendary athlete trained to the point of pain, to complete exhaustion, he switched to a new exercise only when nausea rolled up to his throat. And here it is inappropriate to argue that, they say, all weightlifters train a lot. "A huge army of Soviet coaches adhered to one school, and I went the other way,"- admitted Alekseev. And if his colleagues in the shop had enough to pull 4 tons per training, then he lifted 25 tons in the morning and 15 tons in the evening. Moreover, he loved to create the most uncomfortable conditions for himself: for example, to start training not early in the morning, but at noon, in the very heat. A normal occurrence, according to the recollections of Vasily Ivanovich's wife, was training late at night. “Now weightlifters come to the gyms, and in winter I trained in basements, in summer - on the street,- Vasily Ivanovich told all the same Gordon. - And all this tempered, gave purposefulness. Look, now the guys are like a selection: talented, healthy, they feed them to the bone, but there are no records. "

In addition, Alekseev showed himself to be an outstanding intellectual. He constantly experimented and looked for new techniques. The strong man's fans know about his training in the water. The barbell was lighter underwater, but the legs moved more slowly (and the explosive power of the legs in weightlifting plays a decisive role). Another Alekseev's know-how is bending through a goat with a barbell around the neck (hyperextension). With this exercise, Alekseev was actively pumping his lower back after a severe back injury. Of course, the inclinations themselves were not invented by him, but it was with his submission that inclinations became an important element in the training of new generations of weightlifters. Vasily Ivanovich learned to plan his training process so that by the time of the competition he was always at the peak of his form - an extremely important skill that not all athletes possess. In a word, sport demanded incredible tension from Alekseev. And in this constant stress - physical, mental, psychological - the "Russian bear" was from day to day, from year to year. This is how records were born.

By the way, Alekseev's star in big-time sports lit up rather late. He began performing in the international arena only at the age of 28. For comparison, another great Soviet weightlifter Yuri Vlasov by the age of 28 he was already an Olympic champion and a multiple champion of Europe and the world. And this also shows how thorny was Alekseev's path to sports heights.

At first, no great hopes were pinned on him. But he knew he would be the best of the best. This is another secret of his success: both in the locker room and on the platform, the athlete was always unshakably calm, confident in himself. Some kind of amazing inner fortress emanated from him, which rivals obviously did not possess. In the West, Alekseev was nicknamed "the Russian bear", but it is more appropriate to compare him with a lion, the king of beasts.

In everyday life, he was as simple and calm as in competitions. Judge for yourself: “… We are sitting in the dining car, and behind us four ordinary peasants have washed their clothes. Suddenly one of them says: "There is the strongest man on the planet Alekseev" (and before that I set four records and walked Zhabotinsky in total). The second echoes him: “Come on - some kind of goat is sitting” - and to me: “Hey, goat ?!”. I did not answer: as I ate, bending over, a hodgepodge, so on and eat, as here a glass flies into the back of my head - and smithereens on my head! Meanwhile, I still have zero attention: I continue to eat the hodgepodge! " Of course, it would not be difficult for a strong man to twist offenders into a ram's horn. But Alekseev soberly judged that he was dealing with provocateurs. If you answer them, in the end you yourself will remain guilty (and there were important competitions ahead). The brawlers were so impressed by the weightlifter's composure that they no longer approached him.

Vasily Alekseev did not allow himself to lose dignity in front of big, as they say, people. Even the US President was no exception. Athlete's national team partner Gennady Bessonov recalls an amusing incident: “After the victory in 1976, we were invited to the reception of the then President of the United States. Carter... We've been waiting in the waiting room for an hour and a half. And then Vasily got up with the words: "I have such spare parts as the crankcase, a lot in the garage" - we laughed, turned around and left. The translator did not understand the meaning of this joke. "

Ironically, after the collapse of the USSR, the experience of the greatest weightlifter in his homeland was not in demand, although before that Alekseev successfully coached the Soviet national team. Why was there no place for him in the coaching staff of the Russian team? We do not know this. Vasily Ivanovich himself answered simply: they didn’t call, so he didn’t go. It was beneath his dignity to ask for it.

In general, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a heavy blow for him. He confessed to journalists that he felt like an orphan. Until the end of his life, Alekseev was never able to get used to the new living conditions, where money and selfish interests took the place of the main values.

In 2012, he had to celebrate two big dates at once - the 70th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of living together with his wife Olympiada Ivanovna. I was going to write a memoir. Fate, alas, decreed otherwise. Vasily Ivanovich died on November 25, 2011.

Vasily Alekseev was and remains the greatest among the many national weightlifters. But it differs from the rest not only in its monstrous strength and the number of records. In his behavior, in conversation, in his very appearance, there is something close to every Russian person. There is no falsehood in it, it is beautiful in its simplicity. This is how we will remember him - a simple and sincere hero Vasily Alekseev.

Greatest Super Heavyweight Weightlifter

Vasily ALEKSEEV:"Hear you, goat ?!" - the peasant turned to me from behind. I did not answer: as I ate, bending over, a hodgepodge, so on and eat, as here a glass flies into the back of my head - and smithereens on my head! Meanwhile, I still have zero attention: I continue to eat the hodgepodge ... "

Exactly 30 years ago, the famous athlete, who was called the Russian Bear in the West, the author of 80 world records, one of which - 645 kg in triathlon - was dubbed eternal, left the big sport.

"I want to be the first!" - wrote Vasily Alekseev after the 1968 USSR Championship on the back of the photo, where he, the bronze medalist, was immortalized with Leonid Zhabotinsky and Stanislav Batishchev (I and II places, respectively). Then this impudent application could not cause anything but an indulgent grin, since the 26-year-old weightlifter lifted half a centner less than the champion and no one believed in his stellar athletic future, nevertheless, just two years later, Vasily turned his ambitious "want" into a loud “I can” - not only climbed to the highest step of the podium, but later became the strongest man on the planet, two-time Olympic champion, eight-time absolute world and European champion, and also set 80 world records, one of which is 645 kilograms in triathlon! - christened eternal.

It looked like a miracle that the Soviet materialist consciousness denied the right to exist, but Alekseev was in no hurry to reveal his professional secrets. Experts and experts to this day argue what the heavyweight owes its phenomenal results to: unique physical data, special techniques, or ... doping, the era of which began in 1969, but personally I think that this "doping" for Vasily Ivanovich became cheerful disposition and excellent sense of humor, which his folklore namesake Chapaev could envy. Even in the intervals between approaches at competitions, the famous athlete allowed himself to laugh and joke, in particular, he could hear with pleasure how weightlifter Yevgeny Penkovsky depicts "Alekseev's meeting with Stalin" in his faces, skillfully parodying their voices.

“Monotony strangles, deprives of flight,” the champion complained. Remaining equanimous, Vasily Ivanovich told reporters tales about his special training techniques: he emphasizes, they say, on lifting the barbell in the river (he even showed a picture to unbelievers) and eats half a glass of salt a day, and also, stroking his dimensionless waist, he formulated his personal credo as follows: “ The larger the boiler, the more steam ”.

He did not betray himself, even crossing the border, which was very different from other "homo sovieticus, the face of morality" with their watchful looks and the feeling of being in the camp of the enemy. Alekseev, for example, could have easily slipped his carpetbag to a strict American customs officer, from which a rubber devil jumped out with a nasty squeak, and somehow, giving an interview for a reputable Israeli magazine, he asked - to defuse tension! - Say hello to your aunt. "And who is your aunt?" - the journalists got interested. “Don't you know? - Vasily Ivanovich was picturesquely amazed. - Golda Meir ", after which the magazine came out with a sensational headline" Soviet champion - nephew of the Prime Minister of Israel ", and the culprit of the commotion, hiding a satisfied smile, rhymed:" The strongest of the Jews is me, Vasily Alekseev. "

Oddly enough, the unwillingness to get into a common line and get a one-size-fits-all haircut got away with him: the character, they say, is quarrelsome, conflicted, but a nugget, and even when he, resentful of the Ryazan authorities (they promised to build a sports complex “for him,” and then happily "forgotten", and he had to go to Moscow stores for food), burned the ribbon of the honorary citizen of Ryazan on the Eternal Flame, he had nothing. But the famous weightlifter was immediately remembered at the age of 38, when at the Moscow Olympics he "caught the steering wheel", that is, did not master the initial weight.

Alekseev even today regularly shocks the public with shocking statements such as: "The barbell is better than Viagra." Don't believe me? Ask Olympiada Ivanovna! (His wives. - D. G.) "or" It is better to build one Sports Palace than a thousand apartments ", and when they ask him why he changed his mind about defending an already written Ph.D. thesis, where he revealed all the cards, he laughs it off. However, once, under the mood of the legendary heavyweight, he opened up: “What to hide - an athlete, like an artist, needs recognition, and a good artist owns the audience in full. The athlete first makes her wonder, then worry and love him in the end for skill, strength and courage. I would like to surprise the world with something incomprehensible, and then they will definitely recognize you: for this it was worth working hard, especially since in our time it has become more difficult to surprise ”.

It seems that this, as it was called in the West, "Russian bear" was ahead of its time not only in sports results, but also in understanding the nature of big sport, which is akin to show business and also needs competent PR. Perhaps that is why Alekseev, although he has left the platform for 30 years now, and lives in the out-of-town town of Shakhty in the Rostov Region, far from television cameras, sports fans do not forget.

"AND I WALKED SO LONG TO THE PEDESTAL THAT THE DENT IN THE AID PROTOPTAL ..."

First, Vasily Ivanovich, I must confess that the most vivid memory of my childhood is connected with you: it so happened that for several years in a row my parents and I went to have a rest in Feodosia, where the Soviet Union national weightlifting team, headed by even not a hero, but a super-hero Vasily Alekseev, and, watching you, I firmly decided, when I grow up, to become the world champion in the barbell - to raise this colossus overhead as easily and naturally as you. Well, now I will gladly remind our readers of the titles of my outstanding interlocutor. So, Vasily Alekseev: the strongest man on the planet, named the greatest athlete of the twentieth century, two-time Olympic champion, eight-time world and European champion, seven-time champion of the USSR ... By the way, remember how many world records you set?

At one time, I was regularly reminded of this - 80.

It's a terrible thing, and it's true that some of your records are still - decades later! - remains unsurpassed?

In the total of triathlon, I think, it will be difficult to break the record - not the conditions, and there are no athletes who were born during the war and survived all these misfortunes that fell on our heads.

- Did it really matter?

But how! - difficulties forge character. Now weightlifters come to the gyms, and in winter I trained in basements, in summer - on the street, and all this tempered, gave purposefulness. Look, now the guys are like a selection: talented, healthy, they feed them to the bone, but there are no records ... It would seem that what is stopping them, but they ... just do not train. A quitter on a quitter - it amazes and offends me.

- Once Vladimir Vysotsky dedicated "Song of a weightlifter" to you with the following words:

Such an overwhelming bulk
I will not wish my enemy.
I walk up to a heavy projectile
with a heavy feeling -
suddenly I will not lift it.
We both seem to be made of metal
but only he is really metal.
And I walked so long to the pedestal,
that he trampled the dents in the platform ...

The only thing I disagree with is the chorus.

- Not marked by the grace of a mustang,
I'm constrained, I'm not quick in my movements.
Boom, boom overloaded -
my eternal rival and partner ...

It is with these words that I am dissatisfied. How is it "constrained", how is it "not fast in movements"? - Yes, I played volleyball according to the masters and table tennis in 40 games in a row: everyone still remembers that.

Vladimir Semenovich, as I understand it, when I wrote this song, the text of it did not agree with you, but did you know that he dedicated it to you?

I found out later, later. Vysotsky, by the way, was here in Shakhty - he spent three days on the Don at the dacha. At that time, in my opinion, I was performing in America - I was flying from the World Championship, and, unfortunately, I did not find him.

- Subsequently, did you meet with him?

Alas. In 1980, at a training camp in preparation for the Olympics, I asked through the Komsomol Central Committee to find him and invite him. Other artists of the Taganka Theater have come more than once: Zolotukhin, Farada, Filatov - now I name it from memory, but he doesn’t: they said that he was somewhere on tour, he was busy, he couldn’t. Well, then the news came - he died. We were, of course, very traumatized.

When I entered your living room, I immediately noticed the astronomical number of sports medals and cups. True, there are no government awards on this iconostasis, and you were one of the few athletes in the Soviet Union who were awarded the highest order - Lenin ...

I have five government orders and a certain number of medals, but I don’t wear them.

- Did you even estimate how many kilograms all your awards weigh?

You know, as a rule, they are not weighed, although it is difficult to lift everything at once.

- Even to you?

Not for me, but for my wife - Olympiada Ivanovna is in charge of this entire household.

"IN THE LESPROMKHOZ I REGULARLY OPENED CARS, THAN HAVE DEALED DAMAGE TO THE STATE"

- You, according to your biographers, were the fourth child in the family ...

No, not the fourth: two older brothers, born in 27 and 33, died of hunger (we also suffered from the famine, like Ukraine). Two brothers survived, my sister and I am the sixth.

- Where did your family live then?

In the Ryazan region.

"Was hunger raging there too?"

And he was everywhere, and, by the way, another brother, the seventh, died after the war.

- Did they bring you up in severity or spoil you?

I did not see any harshness or parental affection as such - the family was normal. They didn’t drive us into the house from the yard and didn’t ask about school successes, because in the post-war period everyone lived like that - we didn’t stand out in anything special.

- Was the poverty terrible?

No - I was born at the distillery. My father was a stoker there, so he was even recalled from the front, because without cartridges you can still go on the attack, but without alcohol you can't. He worked throughout the war for two or three shifts and disappeared at the plant for days.

- Is it true that when you grew up, you helped your father to harvest and raft logs?

Yes, all the holidays, both winter and summer, I spent with him.

- Were you a hero as a child? When did you feel your strength?

As soon as I got to my feet - even earlier than Ilya Muromets.

- Guys - peers and older - how did you feel about this?

As far as I can remember, I was a leader and always ruled, however, I did not stand out in growth. I stretched out catastrophically quickly: in the seventh grade I stood in the middle at physical education, and when I moved in the eighth, I became the first: can you believe this? He was strong, busty, and after the summer holidays he came to school slender.

- What weight could you lift, squeeze, for example, in the fifth or sixth grades?

Somehow a neighbor got hold of a trolley axle - there were 30 kilograms in it - and pressed it about 10-12 times, and I pushed 14 times (I could not press it yet, I had no strength). Therefore, since childhood, I have a confident push, but over time the strength increased, and accordingly I walked and looked out for where the axle was harder to find. Then in the timber industry in the North (in the 53rd year the family moved to Arkhangelsk region) he regularly raked up trolleys, which caused considerable damage to the state. Only already at the institute I saw a real barbell ...

- Excuse me, did you see her at all before the institute?

Of course not.

- How old were you already?

19, probably - now at this age no one would even let me into the hall.

Until the age of 19, not seeing the barbell and becoming the greatest weightlifter in history is fantastic! By and large, can you call yourself a nugget?

I can't - it's immodest. Yes, I agree, such things are surprising now, but then ... Well, I came to the institute and at the same time to the section: I took up a 28-mm neck, and it seemed to me that it was sharp, like a knife, it cuts. There were some axes (shows, connecting thumbs and forefingers) - 90 millimeters in diameter. After the first training session, I left - I didn't like the barbell, and then they persuaded me to speak for the course, for the faculty, for the entire forestry institute, and by the spring I was already a champion of both the course, the institute and the region.

I watch you gesticulate and think: “These same hands were lifting such terrible weights” ... Does a weightlifter need to be especially handy?

Yes, of course, but I had a problem - short fingers. If they were a couple of centimeters longer ...

- ...then?..

I'll tell you: there would have been much more records - over 100. In the snatch, I did not take with a wide grip - there was not enough hand length. Little fingers did not reach, but here, on the right hand, one is missing at all ...

- How is it not?

Well, injured, he does not bend, so I set four world records in snatch with these two fingers.(shows middle and index).

In other words, the famous Russian expression: "Yes, I have them with one finger!" - in your case it needs adjustment: two ...

Many weightlifters who have long fingers, I just envied - for example, David Rigert: he wrapped them around the bar, he also clamped his thumb with his ring finger (in addition to the index and middle) - and there is no problem! It's like with safety straps, but I had to rebuild the whole training methodology - to work out a grip, a grip, and again a grip.

"I AM ONE, LIKE PAVLOV ON DOGS, DOZENS, IF NOT MORE, I TESTED THE METHODOLOGY"

Before barbell training, you worked as a shift foreman at the Kotlas Pulp and Paper Mill in a biological treatment plant ...

Wastewater - was the shift supervisor there.

Even so? That is, they could well say to themselves that life, in general, was a success. Stable job, good salary, respect as a proletarian bone - what kind of sport is there?

Nevertheless, I stubbornly lifted the barbell. They tried to persuade me to quit sports, they said: "You are talented, but our technologist is just leaving ...", they predicted to take his place. He later, by the way, became the governor of the Arkhangelsk region.

- An enviable prospect in front of you, I see, was opening up ...

Well, yes (laughs)- maybe, following his footsteps, I would eventually advance to this position.

You, how few, perhaps, who made yourself, but first trained under the guidance of Rudolf Plükfelder - the champion of the Tokyo Olympics ...

Never!

- How is it?

Yes, only so. I moved here, to Shakhty, - Moscow sent! - because in 71st the local team (it was at the "Yuzhnaya-1" mine) performed at the Spartakiad of the peoples of the USSR. She had to fight the weightlifters of the Voroshilovgrad diesel locomotive plant, and as luck would have it, two athletes were missing - a hole arose ...

- ... and found you ...

They sent me because I had to leave Koryazhma, where I worked. There was not even a gym there - they trained in the basement on an ordinary floor, punctured through and through. I could not even lift the barbell, because the ceiling in the basement did not allow, and by that time I had already fulfilled the master's standard. Someone, in a word, liked it, someone noticed ... Actually, I had two options - Ufa and Shakhty ...

- ... but Ufa is far away ...

It is the same from Koryazhma, except perhaps further from Paris.

- So you didn't train under the leadership of Plukfelder?

The thing is that classes in the institute section helped me. There were no masters, no champions - only first-class athletes, but what virtuosos! I have never seen anyone equal to them in the technique of performing the movements, and when I came here, there were just blockheads as compared to them.

In short, I had something to compare with, and out of stupidity I went to Plyukfelder to advise something ... He besieged me once, and then I see: what he offers is generally nonsense. Again I got in with advice, but the result was not so hot, only I came as a master of sports ...

- Did you try to punch him?

Well, no, we haven't practiced such things yet. That's all, we immediately found a "common language" ... Everyone stood his ground, but he didn't need me, because he was used to seeing athletes muscular, pumped up, and the comparison was not in my favor: Jabotinsky had 170 kilograms , and mine is 102-105.

- Such a difference?

Of course - but what? Height - 188, weight - 105.

- You once said: "Nobody knows weightlifting better than me" ...

I will add: he still does not know.

- What did you mean?

You see, I on myself, like Pavlov on dogs, have tried dozens, if not more, techniques. Of course, I understood a lot and learned a lot, plus everywhere and everywhere I looked, compared, analyzed from athletes who are somehow different from others, adopted what I liked, and checked it again on myself.

“ONCE TO ME IN GENERAL, THE DOCTOR ADVISED THAT IN THE CIRCUS WITH THE BEASTS. OR WITH ANIMALS - HOW CORRECT? "

If you believe the numerous books, studies and monographs that tried to unravel the Alekseev phenomenon, firstly, you never had a coach, secondly, you never listened to anyone's advice and recommendations, and, finally, thirdly, by trial and mistakes have developed their own training system - reduced the training weight of the barbell, increasing the number of approaches to the apparatus. Is that correct?

Not approaches - lifting the bar at a time.

At the same time, you often said to athletes and coaches: "Fuck ... birds, you all do not like that" - were they happy to hear that from you?

In this, I think, I was wrong, but about the fact that I did not listen to anyone ... I did not listen to those who did not understand anything in the barbell. Once the doctor advised me in general, who worked in the circus with animals. Or with animals - how is it right?

- Both options are acceptable, except that the second is a little outdated, and what did he advise?

At competitions, where I twice unsuccessfully went to the platform - I didn't lift it, he told me how to tear the barbell under a hot hand.

- Did you listen to his advice?

I remembered a three-letter word ...

- ... peace, May?

Yes (laughs)and, accordingly, doctors ...

I suspect that not everyone was pleased with your successes, but at least the struggle was fought honestly or could competitors have tripped up on occasion?

I'll tell you one episode, but draw your own conclusions. In 1970, the Friendship Cup was held in Minsk. Usually, the kids arrive first, then the middle weights, and the last are we, the heavyweights, and so on March 16 (I remembered the date exactly, because on the 18th I went to the platform) we were sitting in the restaurant car, and behind four ordinary peasants had done their washing. Suddenly one of them says: "There is the strongest man on the planet Alekseev" (and before that I set four records and bypassed Zhabotinsky in total). The second echoes him: “Come on - some kind of goat is sitting” - and to me: “Hey, goat ?!”. I did not answer: as I ate, bending over, a hodgepodge, so on and eat, as here a glass flies into the back of my head - and smithereens on my head! Meanwhile, I still have zero attention: I continue to eat the hodgepodge!

There were four of us: two heavyweights (including myself) 130, and two 110 kilograms each: you can imagine who these dunce climbed - on four elephants. With my character, they didn't need to rip their heads off, but God saved me.

I felt: this is a serious matter, I remembered the two-time European champion and the four-time Boxer Union Viktor Ageev and 1968, when he was convicted(he was expelled from the USSR national team and stripped of the title of master of sports for a drunken fight near a Moscow nightlife cafe. - D. G.) ...

Opposite me Valera was sitting Yakubovsky. “Didn't you hear,” he asks, “have you been insulted? Yes, I will break their mouths now, I will break their necks. " - “I, - I say, - would have done it long ago, but we will be guilty: sit still.” The peasants, meanwhile, were still speaking, but seeing that we had not uttered a word, they shut up.

- Do you think it was a provocation?

Now, after so many years, I am 100 percent sure of this. I was on my way to set a world record in triathlon, to open the 600 Club, which many in our country have only dreamed of - some of them, naturally, did not like it.

- Competitors, probably ...

And I didn't have them at that time. It is not clear who wanted to take me out of the game - this question still torments me. There are, of course, assumptions ...

No, I won’t, but after I performed on March 18 and set that expected, crazy record, they still wrote a dirty trick about me: they didn’t feel the breath of my opponents, so I used only five of the nine set approaches.

- Do not regret that you did not take the impudent fellow travelers by the scruffs, did not ask who sent them ...

To do this, we had to beat their muzzles, but then we would not have reached Minsk. If they were so cunning, they would pretend to be beaten, and the witnesses were probably prepared ... Who would have believed that the men with a total weight of 250 kilos climbed half a ton?

“WELL, WHAT COULD BE A LASK TO THE BAR? IRON - IT IS IRON ... "

- You said (I quote):“I didn’t lift the barbell like everyone else - a huge army of Soviet coaches adhered to one school, and I went the other way, and therefore I was considered a black sheep, a fool, an idiot” ...

Well, I think they didn’t consider it an idiot and a fool, it’s just that when I lifted 40 tons, they were four - 10 times less.

- 40 tons per training?

For two. They trained once a day, and I twice: I threw 25 tons in the morning, and 15 tons in the evening, and at the same time I heard from them: "We met the loaders before you." “Guys,” he said to them, “how about catching a fish without difficulty?” Their results grew, but not so much, and the same Zhabotinsky, if he lifted a ton or two, that's good.

- Was he lazy or didn't understand how it should be?

Everything was given to him by nature - so he did not overwork, and if they lifted seven tons (as in 1968, when they were preparing for the Olympics in Mexico City), then they went down to a bar at a hotel in Dubna near Moscow, where they allowed themselves to pass cognac under a jar of cod liver grabbed for this case. I was also offered something like that, because I had no money at that time, but I answered that I ate this liver as a child, in the Arkhangelsk region. There, all the shelves were filled with it - except for liver and sprat, no canned food, so for me this is not a deficit.

- Listen, to lift 40 tons every day ...

In one day.

- Did you like to pull such weights or did you know that there is a word "must"?

No, for me "flexing muscles" was a pleasure, a joy. Of course, all sorts of life's vicissitudes interfered with this, but I always repeated to athletes and fans: the most important thing (today they have already started to forget about this principle!) Is to train with pleasure and according to well-being.

- If not, is it better to wait?

If you feel bad, go train, and if you feel good, put on two or three times more load. If an exercise is underway, then you eat it so that you are full - then there will be a return, otherwise you have not gotten enough, here, this is not possible, that is a lot ...

- When you were an athlete on the crossbar, did you pull up?

I think I'm the only heavyweight who pulled up 12 times (Jabotinsky, by the way, never). Then, I will notice, my weight was 126 kilos.

- Weightlifters don't like this exercise ...

Well, small ones on the crossbar work wonders, but heavyweights ... Biceps, then, in principle, everyone has the same strength. Here we had Gennady Chetin(bantamweight weightlifter - D. G.) , so he came out from the bottom up at least 100 times.

“I had many secrets,” you admitted once, “but I hid them” ...

They are still in bulk now.

- Didn't you share with anyone?

Are there any interested persons? I trained behind closed doors: at the training camp in Podolsk I had a separate gym. One of the reasons was that I was studying with open windows. If you open the door, there is a draft, because in the hall opposite the window is also wide open and it was blowing decently there, and the second reason ... There was no desire ...

Really, an ambitious guy who dreamed of becoming as great never came to you, and did not ask: "Vasily Ivanovich, well, tell me what you are doing there ..."?

And I, when I passed the others in the hall, always prompted, because, like in a movie, I could see who was missing something. I just didn't want to impose my understanding on those who don't need it. Why, if the team performed well anyway?

- Did everyone obey you, or did some of them dismiss you?

Why shrug it off if it is clear that a person understands in this matter?

- Some weightlifters say that they loved the barbell as a woman - you too?

Well, the similarities, of course, are few, but I loved to love, and I still respect them. I never allowed stepping over the barbell, putting your foot on the bar - this is disrespectful to your favorite apparatus. For me, putting your foot in a boot on a barbell, which you then take on your bare chest, is like getting up on a table with your feet: this is simply bad manners, and many, one might say, all do this. Such things annoy me ...

- How affectionately did you handle the barbell?

Well, what kind of weasel there can be: iron - it is iron, just a shell.

“THE HORSE IS HARD TOO BUT IT PULLS. MAYBE THAT SHE DON'T LIKE, AND I HAVE RAISED THE BAR FOR PLEASURE "

I read somewhere that in one workout you changed 8-12 shirts, because four kilograms of sweat came out of you - is this not a myth?

No, I really took a few shirts - almost a dozen! - and now and then changed. Your chest is wet, and if you don't change in time ...

- The sweat flowed in streams?

Well, if four kilograms are down, it should flow. I remember that in Ryazan, where there is a tea packing factory, I met with a candidate of sciences on these matters, and let him lecture me on how to brew tea and how to drink it: they say, you need three cups a day. “And I,” I say, “four liters in the morning and the same amount in the evening — then it comes out. Do you think three cups will be enough for me? " He threw up his hands: "Yes, here my science is powerless."

I was the first to come up with tea to drink in training. From the institute came hungry and immediately behind the bar, but my stomach went on strike without food, so after two exercises I will leave the hall, have tea and back, and when I was already in the national team, no one drank tea, but I bought a samovar and had tea. Well, like a buzz and everything else, but in Ryazan, from a tea-packing factory, teas were brought in of the highest grade, and I there in the first couple of months heaped up so many records - I worked miracles. Then, however, once - and stopped. I think: what's wrong? I trained, as usual, using the same technique, and realized that the secret was in the tea that I brewed.

If it were capitalism then, the Ryazan factory would engage you with the face of its brand - you would earn more than for records ...

I'm afraid under our capitalism, tea would not help(laughs).

- How many liters of liquid did you drink then per day?

How much I lost, so much, as I understand it, and drank. Here in Shakhty there was a methodology - we trained from four in the evening ... This, by the way, about Plukfelder: I worked with them for two months in total, and in December 1967 I left the team. In the evening you pull the barbell, you get drunk - you sleep badly, and in the morning I trained alone - beauty: in the evening I restore the water balance and sleep as expected.

- Why did you torture yourself like that? What did you want to prove to yourself or to someone?

Tortured?

- Well, I think 40 tons per day can be thrown ...

We just said that I was happy to pick them up.

- I agree, but this is hard labor ...

To whom is destined - the horse is also very hard, but it pulls. Maybe she doesn't like it, but I lifted the barbell for pleasure, and now I train like that. It has already turned into a need, into a necessity.

- Is the work exhausting nonetheless?

In the beginning, until the muscles grow, until the ligaments get stronger, and until the body is drawn in, and it really is tight, but you need to endure two or three months, and then things will go. You also need to have your head on your shoulders: if you tear your navel or break your back, yes, your fate is unenviable, but if, as we said, you practice reusable lifts ...

- ... it's different ...

Exactly. Then, lifting the projectile, you get such an adrenaline rush ...

There is an opinion that athletes' potency suffers from such an excessive load - have you experienced any problems associated with this?

- (Laughs).Once I was on television in Salekhard, and a woman called the studio: my daughter, they say, is marrying a master of sports in weightlifting - will the hobby of the future son-in-law affect the intimate life of young people? I reassured: “Mom, don't worry! Everything will be fine for them. "

- Will start to carry his wife in his arms ...

And on hands, and there(winks) everything will be OK.

“YURI VLASOV? AND WHO IS IT? DIDN'T HEAR ... "

From an early age, I paid attention to the thick spirit that stood in the halls where weightlifters trained: the air there was so ... how would it be softer ... real, in a word, a gas attack ...

No, it seemed so to you when you were young. The hall in Feodosia is huge, the playroom is 36 meters long, plus high ceilings. For 20 people this is nothing ...

- ... but the smell, I remember, was specific ...

Well, this may be because the hall is Dynamo(laughs).

- That is, on the bases of other societies it smells of incense ...

They also built some kind of gadky plant ... I, already being the head coach of the USSR national team, brought the team there, and after a week half, as a rule, had a sore throat. What kind of chemical monster was slapped there, in the Crimea, together with a nuclear power plant?

You said that you loved to play volleyball, but as far as I heard, you usually went out on the court with a small lead belt. How many kilograms were in it?

- (With surprise).How do you know?

- The work is so ...

It was 13 kilos - and I trained with him.

- And what, took off over the net?

And then! I played for four hours on a non-training day, Saturday or Sunday.

- Who made this belt?

I did it myself. I'm a designer-inventor - out in the yard, you see, the machines made by me personally.

- Once, as a kid, I interviewed the famous Soviet weightlifter Yuri Vlasov ...

Yes? And who is it? - did not hear (laughs) ...

And he said that the main problem of weightlifting is doping, which drives many to the grave ahead of time. Without exception, all world records are achieved, according to him, thanks to doping, and sport has ceased to be a competition of the strong, but has turned into a fight of chemicals. Earlier, with you, this problem was, did you use doping?

Tell me, what is meant by this word?

- Anabolics ...

Let's say, but they were not considered doping until the 76th year. The 76th at the Montreal Olympics is an interesting topic! - for the first time they used anti-doping, or rather, anti-anabolic control. I don’t want to mention the names, but in my weight I will mention Gerd Bonk from the GDR ...

- ...a serious guy!..

And Hristo Plachkova from Bulgaria.

- It was also not a gift ...

They are both tough guys. Before going to Montreal, one won Europe at home, gaining 432 kilograms in biathlon (I did not compete there, although I went - then I regretted that it happened), and the second broke my record - he raised 442 kilos in total. On this topic, if you have time, I can tell you a story like an anecdote.

- I will listen to you with pleasure ...

In December 75, I moved to Ryazan, and some correspondent found my phone and called: "What amount is needed in biathlon to win in Montreal?" Me: “Well, 420 kilograms is enough,” but my record was 435, in my opinion.

In short, when the European Championship was held, where Bonk raised 432, he called again with the same question. “Write it down,” I said, “420” (the journalist didn't know that there would be anabolic control, but I already knew). The third time he got me in Vladimir at the Grishin hunting base - he was like that ...

- ... the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU ...

Right. I took a barbell with me there with 285 kilos and four boards - I put together a platform, drove in squat racks and plowed there for three weeks. The rains have just charged: from one to three a day.

- So you had a good rest! ..

I trained normally, and a man with a towel was standing next to him - he drove away mosquitoes. As there is a gap between the rains, so I go to the bar - at any time of the day, as long as it doesn't fall from the sky, and at three or four nights I went to the steam room - such was the routine. At this time, Plachkov performed at the Bulgarian Championship and set a record - 442.5 kilograms.

- I beat yours by seven kilos ...

Yes. I don’t know how, but the Ryazan journalist tracked me down at this base in Vladimir and again asked the same question sarcastically. I repeated: “Write down and circle with a felt-tip pen - 420 is enough,” but even I did not think that anabolic steroids had such a strong effect on them. Well? 17 days before Montreal, I tore my groin. In "Ikarus", on which we drove either to Red Square, or somewhere else to take an oath, I sat down in a chair where the back fell off, and while we got there, it probably flew off 15 times. It would seem, take, Vasya, move to another place - no, when jerking, I managed to group, I got up at the expense of the press, and I damaged some muscles. The next day, training, I started punching speed (lifting the barbell with the highest possible speed), well, I got injured - I didn't do anything for 17 days before the Olympics.

- But they swore on Red Square!

- (Laughs).And then! Well, the day after tomorrow to compete in Montreal, and I pulled out 155 kilograms, and then the jerk only succeeded once, but five approaches were unsuccessful (before that I did not hold on to the bar at all - more precisely, I did not do anything from the classics). As soon as we arrived, we had it once - and they took samples for control. Plachkov refused to speak at all: he flew away and did not even register in the Olympic village.

- But Bonk came out?

Yes, he tore 167 there, in my opinion, but I neatly increased it - 175, 180, 185: not knowing what was wrong with my groin. I was ready at 200. I pushed 232, then immediately climbed to 255. Bonk, who set a record in Berlin (how was he fed there?), Gained 405 kilograms.

- And you?

Well, add 185 and 255. Got a pen? From memory - 440 (this world record was shown in America in the morning and in the evening for several years in a row). By the way, I wanted to push 265 more, but when the journalists who jumped out onto the platform surround me, it’s not up to the bar - they drove it away.

- That's what it means to swear in Red Square ...

Yes (with a smile), it's worth a lot.

"DRINK RASHEN VODKA, - I TOLD JOURNALISTS, - IT'S BETTER THAN ANABOLICS, BECAUSE IT CANNOT BE DETECTED IN BLOOD"

- So you personally didn’t take anabolic steroids?

But as? There and before the competition, when they just arrived, they immediately took samples for doping control, and after ...

- Does the weightlifter need doping at all?

My opinion remains unchanged: if you take a doping test, then from everyone. Or not to take - again, from everyone. Our Russians are usually strangled. For track and field athletes, that for biathletes, and in general, the word "doping" is a little jarring to me - I say "anabolic steroids". In small doses, this medicine, in large ...

When I pushed 255 kilograms in Montreal, the journalists trampled the platform: there was no time for the barbell and there was no time for pushing - who can I explain that I want to push 265 more? That's it, the competition has already ended. One of the writing fraternity asked the question: "Mister Alekseev, why did everyone perform so badly, and did you set a fantastic world record?" Well, I explained to them in pure Russian: “Who lives on what, guys, but most importantly - drink Russian vodka. It is better than anabolic steroids because it cannot be found in the blood. " By the way, I drank it on purpose ...

- ...even so?..

Because our medicine, the pharmaceutical industry has never produced anything for healthy people. This is not abroad, and there were no restorers as such. On Saturday or Sunday, whenever it comes, there is a steam room and four "thin" ones, that is, a liter. You go to training the next day like a cucumber - this is a proven folk Slavic way.

- Have you ever been drunk so that you don't knit a bast at all?

Well, we always knitted bast, but it came to a cheerful state.

- How much for this did you have to take on the chest? Could drink two or three liters?

I think this is not the limit.

- Four?

Also not a problem, although, to be honest and frank, there was not enough time to get drunk. At the same time, cafes and restaurants closed early.

- Have you ever smoked?

On a bet - others throw on a bet, but I lit a cigarette.

- Liked?

He worked in a team of carpenters - they all had the sixth grade, and I had the fourth grade after school, do you know how they build houses in the North? In the same place, the foundation is not poured with concrete, but the pillars are taken - the so-called chairs - they are poured with resin, wrapped in roofing material and buried: here we dug the earth under them. I installed two before lunch and after lunch the same, and they one at a time. "Are you progressive, - I ask, - think of getting?". Brigadier then, behold: "And smoke?". “Give up this disastrous occupation,” I say. He sighed, "Try to drop it." It provoked me: "How many months does it take to smoke to get involved?" - "Two". I poisoned myself with nicotine for about a year ...

- And threw it?

As soon as I entered the institute. Honestly, it was a bit hard, in a dream two or three times I dreamed that I was dragging on "Belomor", and woke up all in sweat, and we smoked samosad.

- What, I wonder, your height? How much did you weigh in your best years?

Hmm, what are the best years?

- 1975-1976, I think ...

I entered big sport, having 188 centimeters in height, and gaining weight all the time. In the 72nd at the Olympics in Munich, he performed with 157 kilograms, then drove them. The largest weight with which I went to the platform is 162 kilos.

I remember then they said: “Do you know how much Alekseev eats in one sitting? Five chickens. " Did you really eat for ten?

I remember one incident in the subject. I cut the weight from 157 kilograms to 138 and think: “Let me try to lift something at this weight in Mtsensk (this is the Oryol region)”. I arrived, and there friends and acquaintances brought a journalist from the "Orlovsky Komsomolets" to me. You know: I don’t like to give interviews, but once asked, where will you go?

To lose weight, I need to treat food not very friendly, so I kept food, and your colleague's first question was this: "The readers of Orlovsky Komsomolets are interested in how much you eat." - "Do you have a pen and paper?" - I asked. He nodded, "Of course." - "So write. In the morning 400 grams of caviar, eight chickens, salads, fifth or tenth, cakes and 16 glasses of tea. " The correspondent's eyes widened: "Why 16?" - "How much do you drink?" I raised my eyebrows. "Two". - "And here is my norm - 16. Then: at lunchtime eight borscht, 40 cutlets, and in the evening everything is the same as in the morning - 400 grams of caviar, eight chickens and the rest ...".

- How did you actually eat?

Fine. Well, what could you eat with those pennies in Soviet times?

- Did you even ask for supplements in the canteens at the training camp?

There was nothing to ask. There is a norm - 5 rubles 80 kopecks for food per day, plus a ruble for heavyweights, and with this money, given that it was still necessary to feed the cooks and their families, you will not particularly accelerate. 5.80, I will clarify, this is when I was in the national team, and before that two and a half rubles plus as a heavyweight ruble. The 3.50 feed is blue sticky noodles and a cutlet, in which, if the meat was found, the cooks would be planted. Accordingly, empty borscht or soup, and we somehow managed to keep the weight.

- On what your 80 records were set, it is not clear ...

- (Laughs). On the nerves.

Vasily ALEKSEEV:“I lost the Moscow Olympics because I was poisoned. Who? Shura Rykov from Chernigov, whom I warmed up, - for money and a place in the national team "

Part II

"WORLD RECORDS I HAVE ACTUALLY STEADED HUNGRY: BOILED SAUSAGE, A PACK OF CHEESE, BREAD - EVERYTHING!"

- Maybe this is another story, but they wrote that you had three compression fractures of the spine ...

Why was it? - and now, apparently, they are.

- Why did you get them?

Well, probably not from the fact that he was lying on the bed, but from the fact that he lifted such weights. To be honest, I entered the big sport, being thrown out from everywhere - they even gave the second disability group in 69 and put such a big fat cross on me. Thanks to the neuropathologist who explained what the spine is. For two months I lay at night thinking until I came up with a machine. I recovered, but I'm still doing my back. That is why I am surprised: healthy young guys, but they cannot lift the barbell. I'm with the second group ...

- ... on sticky blue noodles ...

I set records. When I was written off, I came here to Shakhty without getting a dime anywhere - no one needs an injured heavyweight weightlifter. I remember that in the 70s, when I already became the world record holder, they decided to feed me and a pan of entrecotes was allocated for 12 liters. It was brought twice, and each time I walked around the entrances, on floors - I handed out this grub to people. Then he completely abandoned it, and the hungry man actually set world records. You can imagine: boiled sausage, a pack of cottage cheese and bread - that's it!

- How, and what about Russian vodka?

Well, what kind of vodka at the time? Unless he was a student, when he worked part-time on unloading, he could afford it. I started to work with the barbell when the ice on the Northern Dvina rises, and before that I unloaded barges - during the summer holidays in the ORS (Workers' Supply Department) of my native village I got a job as a loader.

After two brilliant victories at the Olympics in Munich and Montreal, Moscow was ahead. You are 38 years old, an experienced fighter, everyone thought: well, at home, where the walls, as they say, help, Alekseev will probably take the third Olympic gold, and suddenly a failure, after which you said that you were ... poisoned ...

The surname of the one who did it, voice it out if you can ... There is such a city of Chernigov, 150 kilometers north of Kiev, and there Shura Rykov lives, who was my second, "followed" me. I warmed him up, and he poured me six approaches before entering the platform ...

- Poured, excuse me, what?

A liquid with some kind of nastiness, which supposedly gives vigor and strength.

"Did Rykov do it out of stupidity or malice?"

For money and a place in the national team - poisoned, you know?

- Do you know who was behind this?

I think yes. The Muslim world - one (Rakhmanov won), Uzbekistan and the local leader Rashidov - two, Dnepropetrovsk, where Leonid Ilyich began his career - three ...

- ... Sultan Rakhmanov comes from there ...

Yes, well, plus Ukraine, which needed a medal as much as possible.

- What did you feel, going out onto the platform - dizziness, weakness?

I felt that I was an idiot: the bar was far away and so small, as if you were looking at it with upside-down binoculars, but there was a continuous knocking in my head and only one thought was beating: “Why do you need this? Where are you going?". My legs, it is true, are programmed - here I go ... If I had even come to the approach earlier, I would have pulled out these 180 kilograms, but they calculated everything ... Then I asked the doctor of the national team: “What could they throw ? ". - "Yes, an ordinary sleeping pill - a horse dose."

- In Moscow, were you determined to win again?

I was in such a shape that there were no equal - if I doubted my abilities, I simply would not go to the platform, I would withdraw from the competition. Shame? Why do I need it?

“IN THE PRESENCE OF NIXON I SAID THE MOST SHORT SPEECH IN ENGLISH. THANK YOU: "SENKYU", BUT "BELIEVE MACH" DIDN'T ADD IT, BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW THESE WORDS YET "

- What did such a big and strong man feel after he received the "bagels", zeros?

Never mind.

- How? - this is, by and large, a tragedy. Didn't you want to cry?

What's there to cry?(With annoyance)... At first I thought they made a mistake - they shot it, but it had an unforeseen effect on me, but then, when I saw how they treated me: they don’t take a coach to the national team, and they don’t allow me to train, I realized that this was set up on purpose. Maybe the KGB had a hand ... Then I restored everything every minute, I remembered literally who said what ...

They knocked me into this Alexander Prilepin (he was small, 134 centimeters in height, and I, as the team captain, actually set him as the head coach of the USSR national team - the kingdom of heaven to him!), And Rykov, who was my coach. They arrived at 11 o'clock in the evening after Taranenko's speech (in the first heavy weight up to 110 kg. - D. G.) and they said: he won against Christ, because they allegedly poured him an elixir, which adds 20-30 kilograms. Rykov began to frighten me: "If you don't drink, the Sultan will overcome you." - “Yes, I’m ready to raise 190-260 even now,” I say. - Let's go to the hall, I'll show you. They just set me up ...

- And it was impossible not to drink?

And who, then, in this life to believe? Of course, there was a doubt, and if I had a little brainwash when they came up to me and ordered ... So I was ready to vomit 190, and Prilepin came up to me: “Let's start with 170”.

“For what ..? - I say. “You’ll pour me something else, which adds 20-30 kilos, - you need to start from 210”. In general, I ordered 185, but he only - yurk! - and left. Well, your fellow countryman brought me a paper cup in six approaches. The next day they came to me in Podolsk. "Now, if you started with 170," Rykov sighed, "you would have fought for a silver medal." “I haven't dreamed of it for 100 years,” he snapped, “I would push just as much as it takes to win.” He nodded: "We thought so," - so, apparently, they decided to jam on the spot! True, they did not want to throw it to zero - they thought I had silver, and Rakhmanov - gold.

- The Sultan knew about this, do you think?

I was not informed. I don't think I knew, or they calmed him down later, but as we were friends with him, we continued to be friends - the kingdom of heaven to him!

(After a pause).If I tell you all about these cases ... After all, I was persecuted twice in Moscow - I just could not believe it then. Both in Peru and in Latvia they poured something a couple of times, only here I knew who was pouring, but I did not see it there.

What nicknames you were given in the West: "Russian bear", "Russian shirt-guy", "big Russian" - in fact, you were the plenipotentiary representative of a great country. Is it true that after one of the world championships you were even received by US President Nixon?

It was the first world championship both for me and for America - it happened, but since they had little brains, or rather, experience in holding such competitions, to be honest, the training hall was set up on the second floor in the same room where we lived , well, after the very first training, the columns on which the floor stood were cracked. We were immediately on the buses and dragged to the track and field arena about 20 kilometers from Columbus, the capital of Ohio. The heat was over 40, 100% humidity, the roof is a stadium! - heats up (they made it for autumn and winter) ... They built it, in general, and Nixon publicly promised on television to the one who is the first in the United States or on the continent to raise 500 pounds, personally hand over a gold tie clip with his coat of arms.

- And what is £ 500 to you?

Well, at that time it was a world record, not yet set, - 227.5 kilograms. I picked them up and brought the hairpin to Shakhty, but the day before, two of their heavyweights - the American president received the whole team! - they trumpeted in all the magazines that this red communist would be beaten here. Then we met: a bottle of cognac, salted red caviar in cans, and Joseph Dube, the world champion in '69 (that was in '70), apologized: he didn't say that, it was all the journalists invented.

I didn’t study French very much, I didn’t have any boom-boom in English, but I learned there. Then the Polish translator laughed: "Vasil, you said the shortest speech in English." I thanked: "Senkyu", but "veri mach" did not add, because I did not know these words yet(laughs).

“I HAVE LEAVED: STALINGRAD, I THINK THEY WILL REMEMBER TO BE REMEMBERED ... TWO AUTOMATORS BLOCKED THE ROAD, SO I SHIBANED THEM TO THE BOOTH AND COMMANDED:“ EVERYTHING IS FOR ME! ”

You have met many world celebrities: athletes, politicians, actors - which of them is more memorable and for what?

Well, we always had a brigade of artists for the Olympic Games. Oh, Lord, you can't remember the last names right now: Andrei Mironov, Edita Piekha, Galka Nenasheva ...

- It is clear now why you set records - such girls inspired ...

No, they just sang, talked about their work. It should be noted that both Olympics were very difficult. First, in Munich, the entire Israeli team was shot ...

- ... they were taken hostage by terrorists from the Palestinian radical organization Black September ...

And just those guys whom I knew died - weightlifters, wrestlers. I met with them in Sweden and made friends.

- Did this painful impression on you?

It worked for everyone - you go, I remember, down the street, and towards the basketball players: "Vasily, let's go to the wall - they shoot there, they promised to blow it up." Armored personnel carriers, machine guns, submachine gunners, helmets, body armor are everywhere ... You go down to get on the bus, and you find yourself at the front - can you imagine the situation? - and yet, be that as it may, dirty tricks literally everywhere and everywhere. I was supposed to perform on September 5th. Everyone says: "Sit down, don't go - they said on TV that the competition will be postponed for a day." Me: "It's good, but we're going." We arrived, and all the judges and athletes are already there. If I hadn't insured myself, the tournament could have been easily held - and most certainly would have been! - without me, because the main rival was Rudolf Mang.

- German, I see ...

We return by bus. I took a nap - whatever it was, but experiences. He opened his eyes: "What are we standing for?" - "Yes, they don't let you through the gate, they are waiting for an order." Well, I took a nap again. I wake up again - we stand still. Literally next to another gate, capital countries are passing through there, and socialist countries are all here: both Poles and Czechs ... There are already 20 buses - this is the attitude towards us ...

- Nightmare!

I left: Stalingrad, I think, is still remembered ... Two submachine gunners blocked the road, so I shoved them to the booth and commanded: "Everyone is behind me!"(laughs).Well, it was an obvious provocation ...

- You were no less famous in the world than Brezhnev, - did not your fame turn your head?

My head is on a strong neck - in vain, or what, did I lift so much on it when I shook my back? No, I looked at life realistically, I knew what was getting from it now, and what would happen next. I did not flatter myself with fireworks and sweet speeches, because I understood that the attitude to athletes, no matter how famous they are, changes radically after the end of the performances. This was waiting for me, but I was ready for this.

"IN BOXING, IN FIGHT EVERYTHING IS PURCHASED - GOLD MEDALS FOR BABKAS, AND IN WEIGHTLIFTING - NO, WE SHOULD SMOOTH"

Once you complained: "Nobody was guarding me, and all schizophrenics just bursting with me" - what does it mean "bursting"?

Well, I didn't have a guard.

- You, in my opinion, do not need it ...

NS! Look: the first secretary of the regional party committee went for a walk in the evening - his two foremen accompanied him on either side, and I did not go out into the street at all, only at night. During the day, if you go, everyone is necessarily crazy or an alcoholic will get attached: a normal one will not work. How did I live here? I get behind the wheel, my wife opens the gate (now they are automatic), I drive out, she closes it, and we go somewhere. They returned in the same way ... You couldn't go to the cinema, they immediately repulsed the hunt in the restaurant, but in order to walk around the city like people, this was not the case.

It seemed to many that the Soviet champions, all the more so great as you, skated like cheese in butter, and how much did Vasily Alekseev get on average then?

Well, 400 rubles of scholarships (everyone got 300 rubles, but Kosygin paid me extra) and 140 was paid at the mine - I'm a miner - that's all. Guys, my friends from Donetsk, from Lugansk (Batishchev and others) earned decent money, although they were not champions and record holders. They called the amounts - I will not voice them! - and believed that I had 10 times more, and when I said how many I have, they were sincerely surprised: “And then why do you live in this hole?”.

I live because I have to live and I like this city, however, in 1974 I realized that I had no future here. They promised me to open a technical school of physical education, but I understood that all this was nonsense. And I was leading a group of craftsmen, and my good guys grew up, but when I asked our native Communist Party to improve the living conditions for one of them, the champion of Russia, they did not meet me halfway. “Well,” he said, “then we will have to flee from here,” but where? I got lathered in the hero-city of Kiev, but they immediately hung such barriers to me ... I had to turn to my historical homeland, to Ryazan, and there ...

- ... there were no conditions ...

This is the first, and the second, the attitude towards sports and towards people was completely unacceptable.

I already remembered my childhood impressions, but for some reason it was especially engraved in my memory how after dinner you left the dining room, lay down on the bench with your stomach up, closed your eyes and rested. Around you, the children rattled - I, too, and one day, standing up, you besieged me: "Well, stop shouting, or I'll throw a brick on my head." It was said, however, in a kind way, nevertheless there were legends about your difficult character. In particular, in Feodosia quietly passed from mouth to mouth that once Alekseev was sitting in the dining room, having dinner, and suddenly his fork fell on the floor, and he was healthy, he could not bend ... He called the waitress: "Raise it up." She flushed: “How can you? I am a Soviet woman - what do you allow yourself? " Without saying a word, you supposedly got up, turned the table over and left ...

This is not the only bike about me - there are hundreds of them. In particular, I had to hear that I threw the captain of a speedboat into the Don, took some hunting guns in the store and carried them away, but I am a rather tactful person, and the culture in me also lingered here and there.(laughs). As for bending over, drop the fork right now - I'll get it with my teeth. I’m flexible, I could make a “bridge”, at school I climbed wooden stairs on my hands to the second floor and in this position I could walk kilometers, but how did I play tennis, took out balls from the floor? Hundreds of them fell, thousands - oh, those storytellers!

From 90 to 92, you were the head coach of the Soviet Union national weightlifting team, and this period is notable for the fact that under your leadership, Soviet weightlifters never received zero marks. They say that this became possible due to the fact that, firstly, the wards respected you very much (after all, you were not just a coach, but also an athlete - God forbid everyone!), And secondly, according to rumors, if you guys are not obeyed, could put their fist well ...

This is another bike, I'm telling you right away. How can you? Firstly, I never communicated directly with athletes - exclusively through their coaches, and did not allow anyone to do this. Not only that in three years not a single "steering wheel" - I have not lost a single competition, and the guys in my national team have not received a single injury. From the Olympics in Barcelona, ​​for example, he brought five gold medals, four silver and one bronze, and if the fight was fair, there should have been seven gold and three silver.

- Another confirmation that for someone your success is like a bone in the throat?

What's surprising? In boxing, in wrestling, everything is bought, and medals are divided among themselves by countries where this sport is progressing or are closely engaged in it.

- Is it still buying?

You didn `t know? Gold medals for grandmothers, but in weightlifting - no, you have to plow. In wrestling, lay down - got a point, but how can you buy a barbell? It is necessary to raise it, and if you have not mastered it, who will give you a medal? Here is still the idiot: they say, Zhabotinsky, my friend, deceived Vlasov. Nonsense! How can you cheat? - three judges on the platform and five on the jury.

He also convinced me that Vlasov did not deceive - it was a tactical struggle, and in general, there is no deception in sports - there are winners and losers in sports ...

Yes, there was absolutely no struggle there. Lenya told me this story twice: the first time was drunk, and the second - already patriotic, that is, embellishing, but you never know what he says. I know: push Vlasov 217.5, Jabotinsky would not have overcome 220, because it was psychological weight.

"They said that I was uncontrollable, and why should I be controlled by someone who cannot add three four-digit numbers in my mind?"

Vasily Ivanovich, I cannot but ask you about the most outstanding Soviet heavyweights - there are not many of them, and if in chronological order, these are Vlasov, Zhabotinsky and Alekseev ... What do you think of Yuri Vlasov?

Truly a great weightlifter, the greatest - you can't use another word! - but also peculiar. I went to the Tokyo Olympics, was three heads stronger than Jabotinsky and ... lost. True, his coach Suren Bogdasarov took the blame, but the coach's guilt is palpable when the athlete has no head.

So I never let the trainer or the leader come close to me - I didn’t allow anyone to count for me or order weight. I was told that I am uncontrollable, and why should I be controlled by someone who cannot add three four-digit numbers in his head? He takes a pen, paper and counts in a column ...

- Did you add it up in your mind?

What's so tricky? Any competition: how much he squeezed, how much he pulled out and how much I need to push in order to set a world record in total - this all happens automatically.

When Vlasov, for example, set records in Rome, pushed 202.5 kilograms, I was a freshman, lived in a room for 18 people, and I had some kind of homemade barbell. I shook it 40 times. "This," he said, "is in honor of Yuri Vlasov."

- How did Vlasov treat you?

To be honest, we didn't really meet with him. He is an unusual person - not a single comedian from the stage will make you laugh, like the story that I will now tell.

When I became the captain of the national team, I lifted record weights, found his phone number and called. Natasha, his wife, (the kingdom of heaven to her!) Picks up the phone. “I am such and such,” I introduce myself. - Can I talk to Yuri Petrovich? - "He is busy. Please call in two weeks. " Exactly at the appointed time I dial the number again, and everything repeats itself: “Yuri Petrovich is busy. Call in two months. " - "I am Alekseev," I say, "I am also a weightlifter." - "Yes, we know you, we follow your records ...". Only in the 75th year ...

- ... descended ...

It so happened that we met.

- What impression did Yuri Petrovich make on you?

Not good.

- They say that several years ago he began to drink urine ...

And what to seize with?

- I have no answer to this difficult question - I am not ready for it ...

He, I remember, was sitting in the center of the table, and I, the vice-president of the USSR Weightlifting Federation, was on his right. Everyone in the federation quarreled and went into powerlifting, in my opinion (there, however, he also did not last long - he was asked). He never liked to meet athletes who were not very educated at that time, and, as far as I know, he has no contacts with weightlifters by the nature of their activities.

Now Zhabotinsky ... Lenya is an absolutely talented person and, if he was engaged in weightlifting, he could remain on the platform for a long time. If I was not there(laughs).

- Did you feel mutual jealousy between you and Jabotinsky - I don’t say envy?

Firstly, in '68 I was third, and they looked at me condescendingly, downright. We got interested because unexpectedly in Voroshilovgrad at the Union Championship he “jumped out” - he drove Leonid Ivanovich on the bench in the bench there, but was actually an unknown athlete, and when they wrote about me in “Sovetsky Sport”, he was surprised: what he earned such attention in the press ? The first secretary of the Voroshilovgrad regional party committee, Vladimir Vasilyevich Shevchenko, said then: "This guy urgently drag me to Voroshilovgrad."

- He was very fond of sports ...

Yes, but we didn’t agree with him in character, or rather, opinions. Shevchenko believed that Voroshilovgrad is the navel of the Universe, but for me that Voroshilovgrad and Zhmerinka are one and the same: the main thing is the gym and the barbell.

- When you meet with Zhabotinsky today, do you have anything to talk about?

We are talking on general topics: how are you, how is health. The main thing is to see each other, exchange a word, tell an anecdote, make sure that everything is in order. Recently, our mutual friend in Moscow celebrated his 70th birthday. Many athletes, coaches gathered, and I flew, but he was not. Now I have returned from Sochi - there were also friends there. By the way, I made a proposal to revive competitions like the previous Spartakiad of the peoples of the USSR, only to replace the bastard word "CIS" - say, to call it the Commonwealth Spartakiad and to have prizes, respect, hymns. You can't save on sports: now they play hockey somewhere, and boxers meet - they check the strength of the jaw. I think it would be nice to measure strength in the barbell, wrestling and other sports. Alexander Vasilievich Butko(Head of the Sochi Integrated Reconstruction and Construction Directorate. - D. G.) he promised me personally to build a hall on Krasnaya Polyana. If you think about it, with the collapse of the Soviet Union ...

- ... not a single new hall has probably appeared ...

Nothing was built in 20 years, despite the fact that we (I mean Russia) lost two bases - in Feodosia and Alushta. And in the highlands - Tsaghkadzor in Armenia, and by the way, a monument should be erected to me in Alushta: being in charge, I sent several wagons with equipment to the gym.

I don’t know what state it is in, because I’ve never been there, but this is my merit - I kicked it out. I have done a lot in this post, but do you know what moment I consider to be one of the defining ones? Then our coaches were eager to go abroad - to the European and world championships, because there they, if their athlete became a champion or a medalist, were entitled to a prize in foreign currency, and those who remained in the Union received nothing. I went and made sure that both were paid equally.

- I suppose they hit the table with their fist ...

I did not knock with a fist, but in a low voice convinced me that more can be achieved this way, and to this day I try to do everything that depends on me for weightlifting. Now in Russia there are no competitions at all(in February 2011, Dmitry Medvedev tried to rectify the situation, for which he established the President's Cup in weightlifting. - D. G.) ... That kind of money is allocated to athletes, coaches for both this and that, and at the London Olympics, I feel they will give us a ride, they will push us to fourth place.

“WHY ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL? BECAUSE NO ONE LIFTS 40 TONS - ONLY ON A SYRINGE AND HOPE "

- God willing, someday a new Alekseev will be born, maybe the future hero will have a hungry childhood ...

I am surprised: there are no problems with nutrition nowadays ... So I managed to gain weight on noodles, and if I managed to do it faster, the records would have gone much earlier. In my time, there were no reductants, but now - please, money is allocated for this chemistry, but they raise less than I do. I'm not saying that I could have pulled out a record weight - my fingers were not allowed - but I pushed 265 in Montreal, and sometimes 270 - can any of them dream of such a thing now?

- At least swallow the chemistry, if you can't do it differently, but do it, right? Apparently weak ...

And I am amazed at that.

- Very high hopes were shown at one time by the resident of Kiev, Anatoly Pisarenko ...

Well, I had little contact with him - I met only after he finished his sports career. A businessman, grasping ... The newspapers wrote that Anatoly was much lighter than me, to which I replied that at 24 he weighed 100 kilograms, and he weighed 128. “He will live to see my age,” he said, “we'll see how much he can pull” , but Pisarenko finished early.

You have overcome the fantastic mark of 600 kilograms, but is there a limit to human capabilities in general and in weightlifting in particular?

When I overcame these 600 kilograms in Minsk, a correspondent came up to me. At that time, I almost did not know journalists: they did not spoil me very much with attention, although they already wrote a lot about me in Sovetsky Sport. It seemed that he did not deserve special attention, but for some reason he stood out - all the time my name was declined ...

- Why - it is not clear ...

He told me: "Vasily, in Rome, when Vlasov became the champion of the Olympic Games, I asked him:" Yura, how do you see a heavyweight who will lift 600? " Vlasov replied: "He must be 190-200 centimeters tall, 170 kilograms in weight and not an ounce of fat." Well, he is a writer, he understands in ounces, but you are the same as Vlasov - in size, according to all data. "

- Only with ounces not very ...

Well, with growth, and with fat - no coincidence. Meanwhile, the journalist continues: "How do you see an athlete who will raise 700?" - “Why should I see him? - I laughed it off. “Look at me: I’ll pick them up.” And I would have raised it, without humor. In 72, when the bench press was canceled, I could already dial 680: 250 stings, 180 tore, well, 255-260 pushed.

- A terrible thing!

Yes, and in 1975-1976, I would probably press on 265, because the bench press was not a problem for me - just to drag the barbell onto my chest. I could shake any world record two or three times.

- How long can the pursuit of records continue - is there a limit to this, in the end or not?

So the chase is already over - I, for example, do not see anyone swinging at a new one. Recently, Iranian Hossein Rezazade left - his compatriots so wanted him to raise 500 in biathlon, but did not hold it. I was in 2003 in Vancouver where he became world champion. What struck? All journalists, both Canadian and newcomers, attacked me as if it were a frontal attack. I told them: "There are young weightlifters, fresh champions of the Olympics, the world - why don't you go to them?" And with the newspapers of the 75-76th years arrived, on which were my autographs: sign, they say, again. Some kind of horror - I sat for two hours after the competition. Everyone was already finishing the compote, and I kept scribbling autographs - this is how I engraved my memory.

- Vasily Ivanovich, why are there no such handsome men as Vlasov, Zhabotinsky and you now?

Because nobody lifts 40 tons. 40 minutes of training, and they leave the gym - they only hope for a syringe.

- Hope for a syringe, but don't make a mistake yourself! ..

Alas, coaches and athletes for several generations (not only in the barbell, in many, if not in all sports) have been doing this bodybuilding: a general curl. I was and saw the head coach of the USSR national team ... Until I check everyone, clean them, turn them inside out, I won't let them go abroad, so no one was caught with me, no matter how they tried to catch them.

Imagine: a guy backed out, already sitting on the podium, and his time - and for doping control. One is so grabbed, the second, even from the banquet, two were removed and taken to a check. I was indignant: “This is a violation of human rights. The competition is over - why are you fiddling with them? " Tomas Ayanu, President of the International Weightlifting Federation, said: “Tomas, do not look for mine - I don’t let those who have not been tested abroad”. Well, as soon as the Union collapsed, off and on: 93rd year - three "hits", five years ago, in Europe - nine. More than 200 thousand dollars paid ...

- ... fine, right?

And yours got there somewhere, and the Bulgarian team was filmed, the Turkish one. Science goes ahead and in laboratories in Cologne(Cologne Institute for Sports Biochemistry. - D. G.) they manage to find drugs that have already disappeared. Previously, I stopped taking anabolic steroids a month before the competition - and sleep well, and then even after 90 days they learned to identify them. And the local police are not reported, and they are caught - I mean doping control specialists: without this they cannot.

"I ADVISED TO SCHWARTZENEGGER:" YOU SHOULD LIFT THE BAR AND GLORATE AUSTRIA "

One guy who was very fond of the barbell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, became the governor of California: did you imagine yourself as a politician?

I already once said: the only one who can be the president in this country is me, but I don’t want (laughs), and I met Schwarzenegger for the first time when he was still a boy - in Austria in 71st. Then the Ukrainian national team contacted the Austrian one, and the Austrians set a condition that I, “like a diamond in the crown,” be included in the Ukrainian team. They brought us, in short, to the hall where these guys were swinging ... I remember that then I advised Arnold: “You need to lift the barbell and glorify Austria,” and he took and glorified America.

- Vasily Ivanovich, but if, purely theoretically, suppose you were invited to the presidency, would you go?

Never! I won't even go as the president of the Weightlifting Federation, because I have to live in Moscow, and I don't like this anthill. Once I was pulled there with ropes.

- I can imagine ...

When I was going to leave for Kiev, they promised everything. You were the chairman of Goskomsport - I forgot my last name ...

- ... Mikhail Makarovich Baka ...

Yes, we called him MM. I talked with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, Alexander Pavlovich Lyashko (I still remember his name, although it was the devil when), and at the highest level they promised me: "We will do everything for you - you will only lead the barbell for us." I gave my consent: "I will head it, and I will raise it myself." Well, they shook my hands and they told me: "Bring us a paper from Pavlov, that you are a free man," and Pavlov, the chairman of the USSR Sports Committee, by that time in the Central Committee of the party received two reprimands for me. He threw up his hands: "Vasily, that's it, I can't take it anymore - they'll fire me from my job." I just could not understand the Constitution of the USSR: everyone is free, everyone can live anywhere, but ...

Alekseev Vasily Ivanovich - no, however, let's not talk about sad things. What do you think a young man needs today, who will not get to know the barbell at the age of 19, but much earlier, in order to surpass your achievements?

Firstly, a specialist trainer is needed, and although I trained myself all my life, I still learned a lot from communicating with the guys with whom I trained at the institute - they were wonderful guys. No one would have had any injuries as such if they were doing, as I suggested: reusable lifts on medium weights, with which the muscle can cope, and for the so-called passages on large weights, it would generally kill.

In the national team, I weaned the guys from this. They have been breaking records all their lives in training, and everyone rushed to watch: wow! When one young Igor Sadykov lifted 190 kilos in the snatch three times instead of the 170 planned, I warned him several times: “If you don’t stop, I’ll kick him out of the training camp.” He thought I was humor, but it turned out that everything was too serious. Therefore, I may have been considered tough: everything that harmed the barbell, I unequivocally suppressed. He came to get equipment, and I handed him a return ticket to Fergana, so the next year he tore everyone up, and before that he hadn't raised anything serious anywhere.

- Did the weightlifters receive terrible injuries before your eyes?

Well, at the Beijing Olympics, Hungarian Janos Baranyai broke his arm off - his elbows turned inside out, and when I was taking the team to Germany, a 16-year-old guy from Lebanon was injured there - a barbell fell on his neck and, in my opinion, interrupted his spine. He was lifted by a helicopter through the roof, and then they organized a show - I don't know how else to call it! - in order to raise money for treatment, so I sat all this show and deduced autographs on bills of 10 Deutschmarks - they were sold at 110. I signed a lot ...

- Have you ever had such that you felt: just about - and there will be a terrible injury?

I have? No, after all, I was wise by experience. And he trained himself, and he trained all the guys in the national team so that no one was injured.

Before the revolution, strong men like you were invited to work in the circus - in the arena they juggled with weights, lifted horses along with carts, and so on. Have you ever, by any chance, been lured there?

Well, the circus is such a thing, there maybe the horses were undernourished ... No, I was not invited, and it does not pull me. We have Dikul Valentin Ivanovich, who became akin to the circus - they even look alike.

- In the national team, you did not practice fun, when the guys began to measure strength - who will win?

No, I stopped such things.

Have you ever used physical strength in your life? I mean the situation on the street, maybe somewhere else, when you had to stand up for yourself?

Regularly. I said that until you give a kick, they will not lag behind. I am walking with two children, my wife - they do not give a passage.

- And it happened that they pestered you because they did not recognize?

No, these were not observed.

Greatest Heavyweight Weightlifter Vasily ALEKSEEV:“When I was offered two Miss Las Vegas in America, I was indignant:“ Are you stupid, you idiots? - I'm a communist and a family man "

Part III

“WHAT COULD BREZHNEV TELL ME? HE WAS NOT ABLE TO SPEAK "

- Do you think that Homeland rewarded you generously for your outstanding sporting achievements?

In what respect?

Morally, materially. I think if Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev had lived in the United States of America, he would have had a slightly larger house and a little elsewhere ...

You know, I don't like these subjunctive moods either - with what I did in sports, in weightlifting, and I am pleased with the attitude towards me, because there was nothing better for anyone at that time. On the other hand, America is not needed - if I lived in Ukraine, I would be treated kindly much more than in Russia. A simple example. In Ukraine, in other republics of the USSR, any weightlifter who won the world champion title at that time received a Certificate of Merit from the Presidium of the Supreme Council, which provided him with a lifelong pension ... What was it called?

- Personal ...

Yes, but in our country no one could even think about it.

- Do you now have a personal pension or a regular one?

I am an honorary pensioner of this Shakhty street - Klimenko Avenue.

- How much, if not a secret, in terms of dollars, does the state pay you today from its bounty?

Well, we divided eight thousand into tritsulik - about 270, it turns out ...

- Well, do you still have any savings? Can you afford something today?

Do you know these names: Gaidar, Yeltsin?

- Heard...

They stole everything from the people in one night.

- Did you lose a lot on your savings books?

100 000.

- Soviet rubles?

Yes - everything that I saved up, that paid for records and victories at the European, World and Olympic Championships, was turned out overnight. I always say that I could buy six Volgas and one Zhigul with my savings. Who rides them today? Berezovsky?

- When you heard that the deposits were gone, what was the reaction?

Yes, no. I arrived from China on December 28, 1991, and my wife says: the rumor is that the money is about to become worthless. I shrugged it off: "Let them devalue at least twice - what, 50 thousand is not enough for you?" But no, it turned out that, as one of the humorists said, these pennies could henceforth buy a pie (well, I, it turns out, I can grab two). Now sometimes, due to old age, upon reaching a certain age, they will pay a thousand ...

- Rubles?

What else?

You are talking about responsibility ... Playing for the Union national team in the heaviest weight has always been a matter of international prestige ...

Both before me and after (although perhaps not to the same extent) under the Soviet Union, it was established: if the team lost, and the super heavyweight won, this is a victory, but if, on the contrary, it is a defeat.

- The feeling that you can't lose was pressing on you, and that's it?

To some extent, yes ...

- ... but did not crush ...

Well, God gave me strong nerves, and I took it calmly, and the other guys - take my rivals Manga or Reading - were jittery. Sweat ran from the Belgian (such drops that do not exist in nature - four times more than usual - flowed down from the forehead), and the German, when I approached, was covered with red spots.

- And you even henna?

What is it to me? Firstly, I have always said that they have two opponents - a barbell that needs to be lifted, and me, whom it is difficult to defeat, but I have only one - the barbell.

- Do you need a serious character to win?

The one who is deprived of it did not win.

In Soviet times, athletes, especially the great ones, were the banner of the country, and the authorities treated them with emphatic respect. During your heyday, did you meet with Brezhnev?

Yes, in the 75th year, at the closing of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, we were sitting at the stadium in Luzhniki next to us.

- What did Brezhnev tell you?

What could he say? Leonid Ilyich did not know how to speak.

- Did you even shake your hand?

Of course.

- I wonder how many secretaries of the Central Committee, heads of regional committees expressed a desire to have a drink with you?

It happened at gala receptions, but what is served there? Champagne or wine. I met Gorbachev in 1988 - they drank champagne, which I never liked.

- Did Mikhail Sergeevich ask for your autograph?

No, but I took it from him, and from Raisa Maksimovna - they are still lying somewhere. I even asked him for a football team to play in the second league. Here two cities claimed it - Shakhty and Azov. The people of Azov still have the sea, all kinds of prickly fish swim, but we only have coal, so it was more difficult for us. I had to turn for help to the chairman of the State Committee for Sports, Gramov, and then to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

- Did he meet halfway?

Yes, we offended the citizens of Azov. There was a Shakhtar team - I can say, its parent! - were playing football...

"PASSAGES, - I SAID, WELL ONLY IN THE MINES WHEN COAL IS PRODUCED"

When, performing abroad, you saw Western stores with their abundance and a generally different way of life, smiles on people's faces, was it not sad and sad to return home, where everything looked different?

I didn't particularly notice their smiles - all these are grins, but the smoked and uncooked smoked sausage, which was hanging and no one bought it, amazed me ... I remember, I was surprised: "This is stale goods - what are they selling here?" The only thing that always depressing was when I went into their hardware stores and saw screws, bolts and nuts for every taste, of any size (I'm handmade - I had to tinker everything myself). I looked at them and thought: "When will we have this?" Appeared ...

- What did you usually bring home from abroad?

Tape recorders, cassettes of some kind ... The kids were still small then, they loved music. The list was given - I bought.

- Did the collapse of the Soviet Union somehow affect you, did you suffer in this regard?

Not much. The only thing I was worried about was the economy - I know something about it. She is like one organism, but I did not think that it would come to such devastation. Who has benefited from this? Selfishness leaped at the kings, who were at the helm, and they do not care that it will not bring any benefit to the people, and after all, everything that is done does not make him any better.

- What kinds of sports, besides weightlifting, do you like? What competitions are you watching?

I'm not crazy about boxing and its consequences, but I watch all the time. True, now these fights without rules are already tired - the same thing! - and I don't see any sense there. I watch hockey, volleyball, because the volleyball player himself.

- As the chairman of the USSR State Sports Committee Marat Gramov said: Valetball ...

How how?

Well, he was a party functionary, not an athlete - he did not fully understand ...

Oh, we in Ryazan told (though this is most likely an anecdote) a similar story about the chairman of the regional sports committee, who worked as the secretary of the regional committee before being appointed to this position. Then everything was difficult, including buying train tickets, and so the biathletes from the station call him: “We cannot go to the competition - only you with your position ...”. - "What kind of sport do you have?" - asks. "Biathlon". - "What is this?". - "Well, of course, skiers and arrows ...". He scratched the back of his head: "Let's do this: I will send the shooters today, and the skiers tomorrow."

- You loved hockey, but were you friends with hockey players?

We trained with them at the same base, and in Crimea I even stood at the goal for them in football. They played hard ...

- Admit it, someone could score you?

Yes, three goals - we played 3: 3.

- I would like to see how you stand at the football goal ...

Oh Lord! This happened on the children's beach in Evpatoria - there the stadium was like reinforced concrete, you can't fall.

- But you can close the gate?

I closed it, threw myself at the feet of one - in my opinion, even twisted one, and from the podium they shouted: "You idiot, this is a weightlifter!" - because when they run and see me, they are afraid. I look good at the gate. "This is a weightlifter, not a football player - hit!" Well, they scored two goals from offside.

Are you happy with your sports destiny today? Do you think everything worked out perfectly, or could you have made adjustments?

Oh, Dima! - if now with my head and start from the day I first got to the gym, I would have heaped up such miracles! On the other hand, if I hadn't rolled my back, if I hadn't been injured, maybe there wouldn't have been anything. I became smart because I overcame its consequences on my own.

No, I have already reached a lot with my own mind, trained normally, and turned my back, because I found a new barbaric technique. With her, having a total of 500 triathlon, in five months I did 540, I became an internationalist - this is such a leap! I was invited to the national team to see under microscopes who I am and why I raised so much.

- Have you considered?

Yes, and they gave a kick right there, because nothing outstanding - not all the coaches with their heads. Pulling 40 tons, they say, you can't set records, but I threshed ... In the morning I go to the gym where the wrestlers have a barbell, I get up there and then, already plowed, I go to another gym where Jabotinsky trains with friends. In the evening I am there again, but already alone: ​​there is no one, and therefore no one interferes. When such loads, you will not lift a record weight, but they are used to it - they just come, immediately so-called penetrations, penetrations, penetrations ... I did not admit this business. "Drives," he said, "are good only in a mine when coal is mined." The coaches and I had different training methods, and, of course, no one could convince me - yes, by the way, they did not try.

- Have they ever tried to hurt you, hurt you, were there moments when resentment squeezed your heart?

Many times, but those who offended through ignorance or habit, then repented, and seriously - they no longer had a second attempt.

- By the way, were your parents lucky to see how you became an Olympic champion?

My father did not live, he died in 71, but by that time I was already a world champion.

- Was he proud of you?

I did not ask, it is not accepted in our country, well, my parents lived separately - in the Arkhangelsk region. Mother died after the Moscow Olympics, after this poisoning. Our family was very hardworking, and all my brothers and sisters are workaholics.

"THIS IS ONLY LIKE THIS IS THIS - ITSELF NORMAL"

- Vasily Ivanovich, your wife's name is Olympiada - did you deliberately think so?

When we matched each other with her, I still did not raise a lot. He got married early, in 62.

- Nevertheless, the name for the wife of the two-time Olympic champion is very symbolic ...

Yes (smiles)lucky name.

- Is it true that at one time you sat on your wife's neck for six months? In a figurative sense, of course ...

Well, yes - before that, due to a back injury, I was kicked out from everywhere. When I figured out with her, invented the machine, told her: "Hold me for six months - if it doesn't work out, I'll go into the mine and won't get out of there: you will only get a salary for me." Yes, I spent six months on 72 or 78 rubles of her salary.

- Didn't you grumble?

Why murmur something? - we have gone through such a life ...

- Did she love you?

She still hides it.

A picture from Feodosia engraved in my memory: you are walking to the beach, for an evening workout - an important, serious man ...

It’s just my appearance - I’m normal myself ...

- ... and then Olympiada Ivanovna minces and pulls pancakes from the bar. Didn't it seem to me?

If only pancakes on the plate, like this(shows: on outstretched arms), but I don't eat during training.

- Has your spouse ever dragged pancakes from the barbell for you?

No, we didn't get to that.

At the height of insane fame, you probably were not deprived of female attention. Admit it: the girls were making eyes, trying to get to know you, maybe seducing you?

- (Embarrassed).Talking about this is long and inconvenient ... I remember when I was offered two Miss Las Vegas in America, I was indignant: “Are you stupid, you idiots? - I'm a communist and a family man. "

- Give me at least three or four ...

-(Laughs).And this serpent-tempter answered: “So what? Here, in America, there are also plenty of communists, including married ones. " Me: “No, guys, this will not work with us,” so then they told them three times via “Voice” that Alekseev was offered and he refused. And if you would agree?

- Four times would be transferred ... When you returned home, were you encouraged for your vigilance?

- Happened that you didn't really want to keep the defense?

Well, who is talking about this topic? True, we have always behaved with dignity, and if there were any rumors, it was not about us.

- You have two sons - Sergey and Dmitry: what do they do?

Both graduated from the law faculty of the Rostov State University (I don’t know why the second went there - apparently, for the company with his brother), there are two years of difference between them. The eldest, Sergei, was a prosecutor in a neighboring city for 13 years, and now he has moved to Rostov.

- Also a prosecutor?

No, I asked him to leave the prosecutor's office, because this life is not for him by nature.

- And the youngest?

He is engaged in business. Lives in the mines.

- Did you want the children to do weightlifting?

The youngest son raised, was the fourth in Kharkov in 88, in my opinion, at the Union championship. He is a very capable guy, but here I am to blame - I did not allow him to advance further. When he became the head coach of the Union national team in 1989, he told him: "Dima, tie it up so that there are no complaints about me: they say, someone didn't take you somewhere or, on the contrary, took you."

- Did your son love the barbell?

He fulfilled the norm of the international master - 180 tore, 240 pushed. More talented than me ...

- Seriously?

Yes, but he also had an honored coach of Russia - me.

"ALCOHOL IS COUNTERFEIT, MEDICATIONS ARE ALSO ONLY REAL DRUGS ..."

You recently said: “Young people have been bad at all times - the ancients spoke about this, but now it has become even worse” - why do you think so?

Well, then there were no drugs, no tobacco, no alcohol.

- Was, but bad ...

In any case, the ancient Greeks and Romans drank noble wine, and now all low-quality alcohol in bulk. I just came from Sochi the other day, where they discussed the alcohol problem in Russia - Medvedev and Putin were there, and Mutko, our Minister of Sports, and Golikova, the Minister of Health and Social Development.

We have a newspaper "Tribuna", the editorial office of which burned down five years ago(in February 2006, when a fire broke out in the Moscow publishing house Pressa. - D. G.), and once her journalist, with whom I was friends, asked: what would you ask Putin at a meeting? (Vladimir Vladimirovich was then president). "I would," he said, "would ask him only one question: when will the destruction of the Russian people stop?" Alcohol is completely fake, medicines too ...

- ... only real drugs ...

And they filled the country with them. Now, if someone gave a person a blow on the nose and the blood started to flow, they would put him in jail, and if they poisoned him with false vodka or fake medicines, no problem: they chided him, and run on. Anything that is harmful to health must be given a life sentence. Well, what do you want? - every year half a million people disappear. I don't know how it is with you, in Ukraine ...

- Smaller...

Well, there are fewer of you, but the system is the same.

- How and how do you live today, Vasily Ivanovich? What do you do?

Oh Lord! Almost nothing this summer because it's hot. I practically did not leave the house.

- Were lazy ...

I was lazy and practiced, but neither for fishing, nor for hunting - nowhere: I went out three or four times at most (by the way, I never liked it if someone said: one or two or three or four - count and tell me, and then I took it myself and repeated it, so I will clarify: I went fishing three times and once went hunting).

- You once admitted: “My hands are gold up to the elbows and my head is in place - I'm inventing” - but what exactly?

Well, I have designed a lot of weightlifting machines. Here, at least, a machine for restoring my back, which at one time was folded and because of which I was kicked everywhere. Now in Sochi, where the hall for the national team was opened, two machines, at least, should be given, in Anapa there are also two. I think this is also a help for Ukrainian weightlifters - whatever you say, the barbell is harmful to health, but if you start pumping your back and knees as a kid, you will be insured from injuries and unwanted consequences for the rest of your life.

- Back and knees ...

Well, and the shoulders by itself. The two machines that I invented keep you healthy for life.

- You are 69 years old - continue to lift weights?

I continue, but I completely changed the methodology. I no longer train to compress the spine, but to stretch, although the muscles work the same way.

- So you are pulling the barbell?

No, I replaced it with rubber and other weights.

- If you imagine that you will go to the platform today, how much will you take on your chest?

It's hard to say - for this you need to specially prepare, but I think that if I had performed for veterans, I would not have blundered. About five years ago, if I trained, I could have put 190 in a rack.

- Vasily Ivanovich, do your muscles, back, joints hurt today? Are you more a healthy person or a sick person?

At times this way and that way ...

- In the weather, it happens that twists?

Now, under heavy loads, if you drag something a little, the muscles hurt more. I still react to magnetic storms.

“I NEVER WORKED ON THE FIGURE. SAY: THIS IS VLASOV'S FIGURE, THIS IS, THIS IS, AND I HAVE RESULTS "

Did you like your mid-70s musculature? Do you have beautiful posters in picture poses like Schwarzenegger's?

My dignity is precisely that I have never worked on a figure. They said: here, Vlasov has a figure, this one, this one, and I had results. I just thought about them - they don't pay for a figure and don't give food rations.

- You have an amazing appearance - have you ever been invited to act in films?

For the role of Karabas-Barabas?(laughs).No, although there was some conversation.

- When you fly in airplanes, how do you fit in narrow seats with your dimensions?

Well, it depends on which plane and how many passengers are flying. Ticket prices are crazy right now ...

- Do you have to take business class?

Yah! - who will pay for it? I always sit with the people, though, as a rule, one on three chairs, because there are enough free places, the salon is not packed.

- What kind of car do you have now and how does a person of such dimensions fit in it?

I have a 452nd UAZ, a minibus is the only car that I fit in and feel like a king on a throne. It is not mine personally - Vladimir Fedorovich Chub, our former governor, gave it to me.

- That is, you sit behind the wheel?

- And how did you go before, in Soviet times? Probably you were given the Volga and the Zhiguli?

Well, how - bought and traveled. Then the "Volga" 24 was more spacious, and I normally fit into it, but now the doors were thickened - they installed the soundproofing, the steering wheel was raised, the seats (they used to be a trough) were changed to large and thick ones - and that's it, I don't fit behind the wheel.

- Do you like hunting?

And what normal person does not love her?

- Who are you hunting?

Wild boar, hare, duck - game that does not need protection.

- What is your most impressive, memorable trophy?

Lord, why memorize them? Wild boars. Ducks. This year, we were supposed to go to Tver to see a bear, but as soon as we get together, it's fry.

- They say you are a lover of strong words ...

Strong is how? So as not to stagger?

- Yes, so that it was ...

Well, you and I live and lived in what state? Where without mother ...

- ... and you won't refuel, and you won't go ...

It's like in Irteniev's poem:

And she added weighty
A word that you can't put into a verse right off the bat,
This word is familiar to everyone
With him we find relatives everywhere.
I don’t know such a country,
Where is it so common.
And the samurai fell to the ground,
The kimono was torn on the chest.

(Laughs).So, when necessary - yes, we say it. We can.

“WHAT DOES“ UNPLEANE POWER ”MEAN? THIS IS ALEXEEV GOING TO THE BATH "

- You are a recognized master of aphorisms - have you ever thought to write them down and publish them?

Nobody wants to write it down, although it should be ... They often say: “Do you remember that you said this and that? - we laughed...". I answered: “What should I remember? Write it down and tell it. "

- There were a lot of jokes about you at one time - which one do you like the most?

Well, this is not about me, but about Zhabotinsky, like they took him out of the competition - they found a jack in one place.

- In which?

In the ass, and then this jack was attributed to me, so we have it(laughs)carryover. Well, once I sat with Marat Gramov at the Sports Committee, and he decided to help me buy a uniform for the USSR national team. Calls one Gavrik. “You,” he asks, “do you know Alekseev?” He: "Ah, this unclean force ...". Marat turned pale: "What do you mean" evil spirits "?", And he answered: "This is Alekseev in the bathhouse"(laughs).

You have a great sense of humor, and I know you love to tell jokes. How would you share with your readers today?

No, my jokes are not for the public - this must be specially selected.

- Then, maybe you will read something from your poems?

I keep this to myself too.

- But you are writing, right?

Well, if there is ink ...

- Have you accumulated a lot of poems?

Everyone has already strangled: publish, publish, but I gave up my candidate, did not defend - why do I need these burps on my biography? True, I always correct when they say: set so many world records, champion such and such, two-time Olympic ... “Why don't you show my mind? - I ask. - Do you point out that, in addition to the Honored Master of Sports, I am also the Honored Coach of the Soviet Union and Russia? This confirms something. "

Poems ... You still ask about the songs ... I was once with a delegation in Germany, in the sister city of Schacht Gelsenkirchen, and there a German says: "Herr Alekseev, you have such a voice - are you singing?" I nodded, "Yes." - "And what songs?" - “I have two favorites:“ Life is wonderful under communism ”and“ Don't rub salt on my wound. ” The head of the delegation made me terrible eyes: "Tie it up!"

Vasily Ivanovich, I am happy that I visited a great athlete and coach, a real Russian hero, whom the whole world knows by sight. Great luck in my biography ...

Thank you, and finally I want to appeal to the parents: do not keep the children at home, do not send them outside! There are so many gyms around, stadiums - take your children by the hand and lead them there, because sport is a great happiness. The main thing, as I already said, is to endure the first two or three months, in any case, if a person gets into weightlifting, he becomes attached to the barbell for life. I know this from myself, from those who trained nearby, and I wish the Ukrainians happiness, goodness, health, and I am very pleased that our Patriarch Kirill traveled all over Ukraine. He did the greatest thing: he reminded us that we are one whole, that we originated from each other ...

- ... not from monkeys, as some claim. Finally, I will not deny myself the pleasure of shaking your big strong palm. Thanks!

Vasily Alekseev- weightlifter with a worldwide reputation. During his life, this amazing person has set a total of more than 160 records, many of which are world records, and one will forever remain unshakable, since competitions in this discipline are no longer held. This is real barbell master, eight times became the world champion and twice - the gold medalist of the Olympic Games. About biography and records of Vasily Alekseev- the greatest weightlifter of the 20th century, and will be discussed in our article.

Vasily Alekseev in childhood and adolescence.
How was the formation of the great weightlifter

Vasily Alekseev was born on January 7, 1942. The childhood years of the great weightlifter were spent in the village of Pokrovo-Shishkino, Ryazan region. His father, Ivan Ivanovich, was a simple worker at a distillery. It became more and more difficult to support a large family every year, and in 1953 the Alekseevs left their native lands, moving to the Arkhangelsk region.

In the harsh taiga conditions, the formation of the future champion began. From an early age, Vasily worked in logging, honing the strength of his muscles on bulky, heavy logs. An intelligent, inquisitive young man felt that his fate had something more in store for him than to cut down the forest for the rest of his life. Once he saw how a neighbor famously pulls a homemade barbell and decided to reproduce the workout at home. Since the guy did not have a suitable simulator, his role was played by the axle from the trolley. In fact, everything turned out to be much more complicated, but the young athlete was perseverant. After several months of intensive training, the barbell obeyed him.

Vasily Ivanovich became interested in sports in earnest: he regularly participated in regional and regional competitions in and jumping, played volleyball. In 1961 he entered the Arkhangelsk Forestry Institute. As a student, he took up strength training. In the basement of the hostel, he equipped an impromptu gym, exercising with everything that even remotely could pass for weightlifting equipment. The rumble of iron infuriated the neighbors, who complained about the noisy student in the executive committee. Alekseev was severely reprimanded and issued a large fine, so that from now on it would be disobedient to be headstrong.

Fortunately, the guy's enthusiasm did not escape the attention of people competent in sports. Vasily was taken under his wing by an experienced coach Semyon Mileiko, who became his first mentor. Studying in the first year, Vasily Alekseev took part in weightlifting competitions for the championship of the institute, which he won, gaining 245 kilograms in total.

During the holidays, the athlete met the love of his life - a girl with the very symbolic name Olympiada. Together they lived for almost 50 years, raising two sons.

Becoming barbell masters.
Champion titles and records

Becoming barbell masters began in 1966, when he and his family moved to the small town of Shakhty in the Rostov region. Here the promising athlete was immediately noticed by the current Olympic champion Rudolf Plückfelder, who invited him to train in his athletic section. Alekseev studied for some time under the guidance of a titled mentor, but then their paths diverged, and the young athlete began to prepare according to his own method.

Vasily Ivanovich no longer thought of another vocation for himself, firmly deciding to become a professional athlete. He made his way to the title of candidate master of sports in just a year, managing to combine the daily 3-hour and hard miner's work. In 1967, he literally breaks into the weightlifting elite, gaining more than 500 kilograms in triathlon. This opens up a direct path for him to the first serious competition. 1968 at the USSR championship barbell master becomes a bronze medalist, but for a purposeful athlete, this success was akin to defeat. A vivid evidence of this is the famous inscription made by Alekseev on the back of the photograph, where he was captured with the gold and silver medalists of the competition: “ I want to be the first! "

And he managed to do it. Since 1970, for Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev a victorious period opens. For 8 years, he became an 8-time world champion, a two-time Olympic champion, and also won the European and USSR championships 7 times. In just 2 years, he managed to update 48 world records! By that time, our hero had obeyed another bar - 600 kilograms in triathlon.

In 1972, a Soviet athlete sets his last world record in this discipline - 645 kilograms. This achievement remained unshakable, since the bench was excluded from the triathlon after the Munich Olympics. In training, Vasily Ivanovich managed to squeeze 680 kilograms, but he could not overcome the cherished milestone of 700, which he regretted a lot. According to the athlete himself, he wanted to leave the descendants a good memory of himself. Barbell Master was, of course, too hard on himself, since his sports legacy is already colossal: 80 world records and 81 USSR records.

Career great weightlifter could have ended in 1969, if he did not listen to the advice of doctors and trainers. Yielding to persuasion, the athlete left the competition and training for six months to heal an old injury, and returned to duty as an invincible champion and an absolute record holder.

Olympic triumphant

In 1972 Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev first becomes Olympic triumphant... The athlete prepared for the main tournament of his whole life as for a real war. And on the eve of the Munich Olympics, a German athlete Rudolph Mang beat the current world Vasily Alekseev's record- 230 kilograms in the bench. The Soviet athlete, not accustomed to being in debt, responded in a sporty, audacious and powerful manner - 235 kilograms. The admired Manga had only to sign his own impotence and admit the superiority of a powerful rival.

To the Olympic tournament barbell master came not only as the main favorite, but also as everyone's favorite. At each competition where he performed, the audience invariably chanted only one word, sounding approximately the same in all languages: "Record!" Everyone expected new unthinkable achievements from this good-natured smiling hero, and he paid for the warmth and support accordingly - lifting such weights that seemed outrageous to other athletes.

At the Olympics Vasily Alekseev showed the qualities of a real leader. By the time he entered the fight for medals, his teammates had already finished with very modest results. The whole country, with bated breath, looked at him, expecting only victory. Alekseev understood this perfectly and therefore could not put personal interests above the duty to the nation. Undoubtedly, Olympic triumphant could overcome significantly larger, record weights, but this was a significant risk. Tackle an overwhelming task for your rivals, becoming a champion and adding another record to the piggy bank, or take the path of least resistance? The Soviet athlete made a wise, balanced decision and eventually brought the USSR national team a well-deserved gold.

The path to the next Olympic event for Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev was no longer so easy. Numerous injuries often made themselves felt, and the rivals grew up worthy. However, experience and irrepressible desire for victory helped barbell master conquer all new peaks. In 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, he again had no equal. Taking 255 kilograms in clean and jerk, he forced the competitors to capitulate, and the audience applauded the feat of the Soviet athlete standing up.

And preparations began again, this time for the Moscow home Olympics, a victory in which would be a worthy end to his sports career for Alekseev. But on the way to the coveted gold stood another sworn enemy of any athlete - age. Vasily Ivanovich decided to take care of himself by refusing to participate in intermediate competitions. He trained, however, all the same stubbornly, although he did not pull 30-40 tons of iron per day, as before.

Few doubted that he would get the third Olympic gold, but fortune turned away from great weightlifter... Almost 2 years of lack of competitive practice, as well as severe psychological oppression made themselves felt - sports hegemony barbell masters ended in 1980. The former Olympic champion reacted calmly and almost with relief to the defeat. He had been thinking for a long time about leaving for a well-deserved rest, making way for the young.

Coaching activities .
last years of life
great weightlifter

1989 to 1992 Vasily Alekseev served as mentor of the USSR national weightlifting team. Coaching activities once again opened for him the seemingly closed door to the big sport. Many masters of sports have been brought up under the strict but skillful leadership of the former champion. From the Barcelona Olympics, his players returned with a whole scattering of medals: five gold, four silver and one bronze. The wisdom of Alekseev, the coach, is eloquently indicated by the fact that none of his students have ever been injured. In his new role, the legendary athlete continued to faithfully serve his native country and left his post only when it was gone. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the last page in a sports career was closed barbell masters.

In 2011, Vasily Alekseev became a member of the coaching staff of the Russian team at the popular sports show “ Big races". However, he was soon urgently hospitalized in one of the German clinics, due to heart problems. November 25, 2011 greatest weightlifter XX century is gone. Buried Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev in the city of Shakhty, where he lived most of his life and from where his champion path began. In 2014, residents of Shakhty erected a monument to the legendary compatriot. And at the beginning of 2017, a memorial to the athlete was opened in his homeland - in the Ryazan region.

We add that the song “ Weightlifter"Written by a famous Soviet bard and a good friend of the legendary athlete Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky.

Training Principles
Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev

Consider some training principles Vasily Ivanovich Alekseev, which he was guided by during his studies.

• Train 4 hours a day: two in the morning and two in the evening... During this time great weightlifter raised a total of up to 40 tons! However, he never used excessive loads, exercising only with proven weights. Records Vasily Alekseev preferred to bet at competitions.
• Use the exercise that works best and work with it until you are tired..
• Diversify your workouts and do not neglect aerobic activity... The barbell master himself was very fond of running and skiing, and also played volleyball with pleasure, wearing a special load belt. He used additional weights in the main classes. In the summer, Vasily Ivanovich loved to exercise in the open air, and as an alternative training he pulled a barbell from the water.
• Drink plenty of fluids... Friends and colleagues said that Alekseev took with him to training a large samovar with tea, which he drank there. This drink was his personal and only dope.
• For training - as for a holiday... Working through reluctance will not succeed. You need to sincerely love what you do.

It is also worth noting that he set records and won titles. Vasily Alekseev without resorting to chemistry. The doping tests of this outstanding athlete have always remained clean.

The secret to the success of natural athletes lies in intense self-improvement and a healthy, balanced diet. In modern sports, additional sources of essential nutrients are vitamin and mineral complexes. As one of them, we can recommend the food additive “ », Created on the basis of natural plant components and beekeeping products. It is an excellent tool for naturally building and maintaining muscle mass, as well as adapting the body to exhausting workouts.