Name Aleksandr Kolchinsky | Role Olympic athlete | |
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Died July 16, 2002, Kiev, Ukraine Olympic medals Wrestling at the 1980 Summer Olympics - Men's Greco-Roman Super Heavyweight People also search for Roman Codreanu, Aleksandar Tomov, Hassan Bechara | ||
Oleksandr Leonidovich Kolchynsky (Ukrainian: Олександр Леонідович Колчинський; 20 February 1955 – 16 July 2002) was a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler from Ukraine. He won Olympic gold medals in 1976 and 1980 and a world title in 1978, placing second in 1975, 1977 and 1979.
Kolchynskiy took up wrestling in 1966, and in 1974 was included to the Soviet national team after winning his first Soviet title. He won five more national championships in a row in 1976–80 and would be a favorite at the 1984 Olympics, but those games were boycotted by the Soviet Union. Kolchynsky retired in the mid-1980s, and opened a small sewing shop together with his wife. Later he became involved with Ukrainian organized crime and in 1994 was sentenced to seven years of prison for extortion. He was paroled in 1996 and became a wrestling coach for teenagers. He died of a heart attack in 2002, aged 47. Earlier in 1998, an annual Greco-Roman wrestling tournament in his honor has been launched in his native city of Kyiv.