Nikolay Balboshin
Five Olympic bouts, five pins, under seventeen minutes
- Born
- June 8, 1949, Potsdam, Germany
- Nationality
- Soviet Union
- Height
- 188 cm (6′2″)
- Style
- Pinning heavyweight
- Weight
- 100 kg
- Active
- 1971–1984
- Status
- Retired · age 77
The medals
Olympic gold; 5 world titles
The story
ikolay Balboshin was born in Potsdam, where his father, a Soviet career officer, was serving, and took up wrestling after the family moved to Moscow. He was regarded as the world's best Greco-Roman heavyweight of the 1970s: he won world titles in 1973, 1974, 1977, 1978 and 1979 and six European titles. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics he pinned all five opponents, spending only 16 minutes and 48 seconds on the mat in total. Injuries followed him throughout his career; at the 1980 Moscow Games, where he carried the Soviet flag, he was hurt early and had to withdraw. He recovered to win a Soviet title in 1984, only for the Soviet boycott to keep him out of the Los Angeles Olympics. He then coached in Moscow and entered the FILA Hall of Fame in 2006.
- Olympic champion, 100 kg (1976)
- World champion (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979)
- European champion 6 times (1973, 1975–1979)
- FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame (2006)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1976)
- Soviet flag bearer at the 1980 Moscow Olympics
Defining matches
- 1973World title Tehran (first of five)
- 1974LOSSvs Kamen Goranov (European final)
- 1976Olympic gold Montreal (five wins, all by fall, in 16:48 of mat time)
- 1980Injured at the Moscow Olympics and withdrew
Finish what you start: once you turn an opponent, stay chest to chest, keep your hips heavy and walk your feet to hold him until the fall. Balboshin won every one of his Montreal bouts by pin.
1990–2000
