He had one of the oldest records in the world.
His dates from 1986 and for 35 years no one has beaten him, or even really approached.
That evening, August 30, 1986 in Stuttgart during the European Championships, Yuriy Sedykh threw the hammer at 86.74 m beating the own world record that he had already held since 1984. He had also sent that day. all its machines at more than 85 m, a performance rarely achieved in the history of this discipline.
The pitcher Yuriy Sedykh died on Tuesday night from a stroke.
He was 66 years old.
With him died one of the legends of athletics even if his international aura was far from reaching that of his compatriot Sergei Bubka.
And yet, what a prize list!
World record holder for the first time in 1980, Yuriy Sedykh won two Olympic gold medals in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980. In Quebec when he triumphed, he was only 21 years old.
If the USSR, the nation to which he belonged then, had not boycotted the Los Angeles Games in 1984, he could have won another medal in California.
Still a silver medalist in 1988 in Seoul, he became world champion in 1991 in Tokyo.
Accused of having used steroids during his career
Lately, Yuriy Sedikh was accused of having used steroids during his career by Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory at the origin of the revelations on doping organized in Russia between 2011 and 2015. he always denied.
After his disappearance, Sergei Bubka said he was deeply saddened.
Deeply mourn the loss of Yuriy Sedykh ...
An outstanding two-time Olympic Champion, whose fantastic World record in Hammer Throw (86.74) for 35 years is stll not broken. @ Worldolympians @WorldAthletics @iocmedia pic.twitter.com/ZBrqW8MeYV
- Sergey Bubka (@sergey_bubka) September 14, 2021
After his career, Yuriy Sedykh moved to France, in the Paris region. He had converted to a sports teacher at the Leonardo da Vinci university center in La Défense. After a first union, he remarried Natalya Lissovskaïa who is still in 2021 the holder of the women's world record in the shot put (22.63 m). Both were admitted to the Hall of Fame of the IAAF, the world federation. From their union was born a daughter, Alexia, who was Olympic youth champion in 2010 and for a long time world number 1 in junior hammer. In 2010 in Singapore, it was his father who presented him with the Olympic medal. Born in 1993, Alexia Sedykh who had a license in Yvelines stopped her career to devote herself to her law studies.
