Teodors Sukatnieks

Latvian all-round track and field athlete Teodors Sukatnieks competed in multiple disciplines during the 1910s and 1920s, winning several national titles. Prior to World War I Sukatnieks competed for Russia where he became the Russian champion in the discus in 1913 and 1914. After the war he then represented the country of his birth, winning seven Latvian titles in the early 1920s. He continued to dominate in the discus throw with four consecutive national titles (1920–23), along with titles in the weight throw (1920), 4 x 100 metres relay (1921), and pole vault (1923). He was selected to participate in the discus throw at the 1924 Paris Olympics but only managed to finish 21st.

In 1945 Sukatnieks was arrested by the NKVD for being a supporter of the Latvian Central Council, a pro-independence resistance movement during World War II. From 1947 to 1951 he was imprisoned in the north-west city of Ventspils before being deported to a concentration camp in the Omsk region in Siberia. Sukatnieks was eventually released in February 1960.

Personal Best: DT – 45.30 (1926).