Ivan Yarygin

Ivan Sergeyevich Yarygin was a Soviet and Russian heavyweight freestyle wrestler. 

Yarygin was born in 1948 in Kemerovo Oblast. He was the sixth child in a family of ten
children. Most members of his family were heavily built and physically active people. Since
early age Yarygin helped his father at his blacksmith workshop. As a teenager he wanted to
become a football goalkeeper, and took up wrestling only in 1966, when he was 18. In 1970
he won the Soviet title, he won all five bouts by fall, spending on the mat a little more than 7
minutes instead of 45. His next Olympic victory in 1976 was less spectacular because he
wrestled the whole tournament with two broken ribs. After that Yarygin was selected as
the Soviet Olympic flag bearer at the closing ceremony.

Yarygin retired in 1980 and became a wrestling coach. From 1982 till 1992, he trained the
Soviet freestyle wrestling team, and from 1993 till 1997 headed the Russian Wrestling
Federation. He was a key organizer of the 1997 World Wrestling Championships in
Krasnoyarsk.

Yarygin was killed in a car crash in 1997. Earlier in 1990, an annual wrestling tournament
in his honor has been initiated in Krasnoyarsk. In 1998 a sports venue in Krasnoyarsk was
renamed into the Ivan Yarygin Sports Palace, and in March his monument was opened in
the city. His other monuments also were installed in Moscow , Stavropol Krai in 2012,
Abakan. A secondary school and a wrestling complex in Moscow are named after Yarygin.
In 2010 Yarygin was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame.