Aleksander Tšutšelov was born into a sporting family, as his father Dmitri and uncles Nikolai and Andrei were well-known Estonian sailors. His uncle Andrei won European ice yachting titles in Monotype-XV class in 1933 and 1935-38. Aleksander Tšutšelov started competitive sailing in 1946 and his greatest achievement was winning a silver medal in Finn class at the 1960 Roma Olympics. He was also seventh in Finn at the 1959 and 1964 World Championships and sixth at the 1961 European Championships. Domestically Tšutšelov won three Soviet titles (1964 Finn, 1974-75 Soling) and seven Estonian SSR titles (1954-55 O class, 1957-59 Finn, 1966 5.5 metre, 1976 Soling). Tšutšelov graduated from the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute (now Tallinn University of Technology) with a shipbuilding engineering degree in 1959 and later worked as the chief engineer at the Tallinn Experimental Shipyard of Sport Vessels. He also worked as a head coach of the Estonian national sailing team.
Soviet Union
Estonia