Aleksander Klumberg

Hailed as the greatest Estonian athlete of his day, Aleksander Klumberg set multiple national records in jumping and throwing events in addition to being recognised as the first official world record holder in the decathlon. After taking up sports when he was 12-years-old Klumberg set Estonian and Russian records in the triple jump from 1915 to 1917. During this time he became the Russian champion in the triple jump in 1916.

Klumberg finished in fifth place in the javelin and eighth place in the pentathlon at the 1920 Antwerpen Olympics. He also competed in the decathlon in Antwerpen but withdrew after completing eight of the ten disciplines. Four years later he returned to the Olympics for the 1924 Paris Games where he won bronze in the decathlon, which included finishing in first place in both the long jump and the javelin.

From 1917 to 1927 Klumberg he became a 48-time Estonian champion across 11 athletic disciplines, and set 23 national records. In 1922 he became the first athlete to hold the official world record in the decathlon when he scored 7,485.610 points in Helsinki. During 1922 and 1923 he had the world-leading distance in the javelin throw, was amongst the top-ten triple jumpers in the world, and one of the top-ten athletes in Europe in the long jump, shot put, and the discus throw. In 1924 Klumberg was named as the greatest athlete of all time in Estonia in a poll conducted by the publication Eesti Spordilehe.

Klumberg worked in multiple supervisory and coaching roles in athletics including as the administrator of Kalev Tallinn (1921–24), an athletics instructor at military educational institutions (1924–26), and an athletic coach for a Polish club (1927–32). He continued to be involved at the Olympics, coaching the national team at the Games in 1928, 1932, and 1936. By 1941 Klumberg had been appointed as an inspector of the Physical Culture and Sports Committee of Tallinn, which was followed with a stint as an instructor at the police training centre.

In 1944 Klumberg was imprisoned by the Soviet Union’s interior ministry, known as the NKVD, where he was sent to the Dubravlag prison camp from 1945 until 1954, before being transferred to another camp in 1955. He was released in 1956 but died two years later in Tallinn at the age of 58.

Personal Bests: JT – 63.60 (1935); Pen – 3998.925 (1922); Dec – 6087 (1922).