Anatoly Beloglazov

Anatoly Beloglazov and his more famous twin brother Sergey, who always wrestled in one class heavier than Anatoly, took up wrestling in 1968 and they both found their first fame at the 1974 European Junior Championships, where Anatoly and Sergey won gold as a light-flyweight and flyweight respectively. Both brothers competed in freestyle throughout their career. Anatoly won the light-flyweight gold at the 1975 World Junior Championships and then moved up to senior ranks, where he was European light-flyweight champion in 1976 and World light-flyweight champion in 1977. In 1978 Anatoly started to compete as a flyweight and won the 1980 Olympic title in that class, was 1978 World Champion and won the 1979 World Cup. After the Olympics, Anatoly moved up to bantamweight and, in that class, won the 1982 World title and gold at the 1981 Universiade. In 1983 Anatoly moved back to flyweight and won bronze at the 1983 World Championships and gold at the 1984 World Cup, but missed the 1984 Olympics due to the Soviet boycott. Instead, he competed at the Friendship Games and won gold in flyweight.

Domestically, Anatoly won four Soviet titles: in 1977, 1979-80 in flyweight and in 1982 as a bantamweight. He retired from sports after the 1984 season and later worked as a wrestling coach. He was head coach of the Canadian national freestyle team from 1990-96 and the Australian national freestyle team from 1996-98. In 1998 Anatoly returned to Russia and started to work as coach of the Russian national freestyle team along with his twin brother. Since 1998, an annual freestyle wrestling tournament in his and his brother’s honor has been held in Kaliningrad. Anatoly was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.