Viktor Chukarin

Viktor Chukarin

Personal information

Full name

Viktor Ivanovich Chukarin

Country represented

USSR

Born

9 November 1921
Krasnoarmeyskoye, Donets Governorate, Ukrainian SSR

Died

25 August 1984 (aged 62)
Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union

Discipline

Men's artistic gymnastics

Club

Iskra Lvov
Burevestnik Lvov^[1]

Medal record

Olympic Games

	1952 Helsinki	Team competition
	1952 Helsinki	All-around
	1952 Helsinki	Pommel horse
	1952 Helsinki	Vault
	1956 Melbourne	Team competition
	1956 Melbourne	All-around
	1956 Melbourne	Parallel bars
	1952 Helsinki	Rings
	1952 Helsinki	Parallel bars
	1956 Melbourne	Floor exercise
	1956 Melbourne	Pommel horse
World Championships
	1954 Rome	All-around
	1954 Rome	Team competition
	1954 Rome	Parallel bars
	1954 Rome	Pommel horse

Viktor Ivanovich Chukarin (Russian: Виктор Иванович Чукарин, Ukrainian: Віктор Іванович Чукарін; 9 November 1921 – 25 August 1984) was a Ukrainian gymnast who competed for the Soviet Union. He won eleven medals including seven gold medals at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics (including the individual all-around title on both occasions) and was the all-around world champion in 1954. He was the most successful athlete at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Chukarin was born in Krasnoarmeyskoye village in Donets Governorate^[a] (modern-day Novoazovsk Raion of the Donetsk Oblast) to a Don Cossack father Ivan Evlampievich Chukarin and a Pontic Greek mother Hristina Klimentievna Lamizova.^[2]^[3] In 1924 his family moved to Mariupol where he started training in gymnastics. Later Chukarin studied at the Institute of Physical Education in Kiev.

In 1941 with the start of the Great Patriotic War he volunteered for the Red Army. He fought under the general Mikhail Kirponos. Chukarin was wounded in action, taken prisoner of war near Poltava (Kiev Cauldron) and sent to a prisoner camp in Sandbostel. He then went through a chain of 17 prisoner camps and by the time when he was freed in 1945 weighed only 40 kg. He was not accepted back to the sports institute in Kiev, and studied in a similar institution in Lviv.^[3]

In 1946 he already competed in gymnastics at the Soviet national championships; next year he finished fifth, and in 1948 won a national title. He became the all-around Soviet champion in 1949 and repeated this achievement in 1950, 1951, 1953 and 1955.^[4]

Soviet Union joined the Olympic Games in 1952 when Chukarin was 30. By then Chukarin gained much weight and was considered bulky for a gymnast. As a result, he had low scores on the floor, yet he won six medals, including the individual all-around by a margin of 0.7 points. He won five more Olympic medals at the 1956 Summer Olympics, including a silver on the floor.^[4]

He led the Soviet team to the victory at the 1954 World Championships, winning gold in the team all around and the individual all around.

In 1957 along with Larisa Latynina, Chukarin was awarded the first ever Order of Lenin given to an athlete.^[4]^[5]

He recounted his sport career in the 1955 book entitled The Road to the Peaks (Put K Vershinam). In 1961, he coached Armenian gymnastics team, and in 1963 became an assistant professor at the Lviv Institute of Physical Culture.^[1]^[4] He died in 1984 and was buried at the Lychakiv Cemetery. One of the streets in Lviv was named after him.