Leonid Zhabotinsky's cloth athlete’s number patch that he wore on his weightlifting tights at the Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics. The off-white 6.75 x 4 patch reads his athlete number in bold black digits: “164.” Zhabotinsky wore this patch throughout his record-breaking and gold medal-winning performance at the XVIII Olympiad. In fine condition.
In an athletic event that featured the world’s biggest stars, weightlifter Leonid Zhabotinsky was larger than life. Representing the Soviet Union in the heavyweight division, Zhabotinsky squared off against his archrival and Soviet teammate, Yuri Vlasov, who was determined to defend his 1960 Rome gold medal. With one lift remaining in the competition’s three events—the clean and press, the snatch, and the clean and jerk—Zhabotinsky delivered a mighty final effort, breaking his own clean and jerk record and securing his first gold medal.
Four years later, at the 1968 Mexico City Games, he soundly defended his position and attained his second Olympic gold to become the first two-time Olympic champion in the men's heavyweight class. So inspiring was the Soviet strongman to budding weightlifters and bodybuilders the world over, that as a young Austrian teenager Arnold Schwarzenegger kept a photograph of Zhabotinsky taped over his bed.
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