Sergey Beloglazov

Sergey Beloglazov and his twin brother Anatoly, who always wrestled in one class lighter than Sergey, took up wrestling in 1968 and they both found their first fame at the 1974 European Junior Championships, where Sergey won gold and Anatoly won gold in flyweight and light-flyweight respectively. Both brothers competed in freestyle throughout their career. After winning silver in flyweight at the 1975 World Junior Championships, Sergey was named to the Soviet national team in 1977 and won the bantamweight freestyle title at both the 1980 and 1988 Olympics. This would almost certainly have been a triumvirate but for the 1984 Soviet Olympic boycott. Instead, in 1984, he competed at the Friendship Games, where he won gold. In addition to his Olympic titles, Sergey was the World Champion in 1981-83, and 1985-87, and won silver in 1979. He was European Champion in 1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, and 1988. In 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, and 1986 he also won the World Cup. He won all his honors in bantamweight, except the 1982 World title, which he won in featherweight. Domestically, Sergey won four Soviet titles: in 1979-81 in bantamweight and in 1982 in featherweight.

After finishing his sporting career, Sergey worked as a wrestling coach. In 1990 he was hired as a wrestling coach at Lehigh University, the first former Soviet hired as a US college coach. He also worked as head coach of the US national freestyle team. From 1994-98 Sergey was the coach of the Japanese national freestyle team and, in 1998, moved back to Russia to start working as coach of the Russian national freestyle team along with his twin brother. From 2003-06 Sergey was again head coach of the United States freestyle team and from 2006-09 was head coach of the Russian women’s team. Since 2009 he has worked as head coach of the Singapore national team. Since 1998, an annual freestyle wrestling tournament in his and his brother’s honor has been held in Kaliningrad. Sergey Beloglazov was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2004.