Sergey Sukhoruchenkov

Sergey Sukhoruchenkov was likely the greatest ever road cyclist from the former Soviet Union. He won a gold medal in the road race at the 1980 Moskva Olympic Games. Sukhoruchenkov was a two-time winner of the Peace Race, at the time considered an Eastern European equivalent of the Grand Tours, winning in 1979 and 1984. He also won the Tour de l’Avenir in 1978 and 1979, considered a junior-level multi-stage race. Sukhoruchenkov was third in the 1980 Milk Race, another amateur-level multi-stage race. Because of Soviet prohibitions against professional athletes, Sukhoruchekov never competed in the pro peloton in his prime, although he turned professional in 1989, winning the 1990 Vuelta Ciclista de Chile.

Sukoruchenkov’s daughter Olga Zabelinskaya competed in four Olympic Games, two for Russia and two for Uzbekistan, winning three medals, with bronzes in the road race and individual time trial in 2012 and a silver in the individual time trial in 2016. At the 1980 Olympics, cycling fans were deprived of the expected challenge to Sukhoruchenkov from Greg LeMond (USA), later a three-time Tour de France Champion, and a three-time World Junior Champion in 1979, because LeMond could not compete as the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics.