Sergey Shcherbakov

Sergey Shcherbakov took up boxing in 1936 in a factory gym, where he started to work as a turner and soon rose to be one of the top boxers in the country. At his first Soviet Championships tournament in 1939, Shcherbakov won a bronze medal as a featherweight, which he improved to silver in 1940 as a lightweight. Due to World War II, the next Soviet Championships were held in 1944 and from 1944-53, Shcherbakov won a record 10 Soviet welterweight titles in a row, a feat that has never bettered. At the 1952 Olympics, the Soviet boxers competed internationally for the first time, and Shcherbakov was heavily favored to win the Olympic welterweight gold by the Soviet officials, but he lost to Zygmunt Chychła of Poland in the final and had to settle for a silver medal. Shcherbakov lost to Chychła again at the final of the 1953 European Championships. Shcherbakov retired from boxing after the 1953 season with a record of 207 wins out of 227 bouts. After retiring from boxing, Shcherbakov worked as a boxing coach in Moscow. He was head coach of the Soviet national boxing team from 1954-60 and head coach of the 1956 and 1960 Soviet Olympic boxing teams. From 1963-71, Shcherbakov was head coach of the Egyptian national boxing team, and also worked as a boxing referee.