Paul Anderson (weightlifter) - Career

Career

In 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Anderson, as winner of the USA National Amateur Athletic Union Weightlifting Championship, traveled to the Soviet Union, where weightlifting was a popular sport, for an international weightlifting competition. In a newsreel of the event shown in the United States the narrator, Bud Palmer, commented as follows: "Then, up to the bar stepped a great ball of a man, Paul Anderson." Palmer said, "The Russians snickered as Anderson gripped the bar which was set at 402.5 pounds, an unheard-of lift. But their snickers quickly changed to awe and all-out cheers as up went the bar and Anderson lifted the heaviest weight overhead of any human in history." Prior to Anderson's lift, the Soviet champion, Alexey Medvedev, had matched the Olympic record of the time with a 330.5 pound press. Anderson then did a 402.5 pound press. During the 1955 World Championships in Munich, Germany that October, Anderson also broke two other world records (for the press - 407.7 pounds - and total weight cleared - 1129.5 pounds) as he easily won the competition in his weight class to become world champion. Upon his return to the USA, he was received by then vice-president Richard Nixon, who thanked him for being such a wonderful goodwill ambassador.

In 1956, he won a gold medal in a long, tough duel in the Melbourne, Australia Olympic Games as a weightlifter in the super-heavyweight class (while suffering from a 104 degree fever). Paul was tied with Argentine Humberto Selvetti in the amount of weight lifted, but because Anderson weighing 137.9 kilograms (304 lbs), was lighter than Selvetti, who weighed 143.5 kilograms (316 lbs), Anderson was awarded the medal.

Anderson turned professional after the 1956 Summer Olympics at a fairly early age and many of his feats of strength, while generally credible, were not done under rigorous enough conditions to be official. Nevertheless, he was at one time listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for a backlift of 6270 pounds, which became the basis for his reputation as the "World's Strongest Man." However, in the years that followed several questions arose about the lift - including the actual weight of the safe and table - leading Guinness to withdraw its recognition as a record. As a result, Paul Anderson's name is no longer found in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Anderson could not compete in the 1960 Olympics because he had been ruled a professional for accepting money for some of his weight lifting and strength exhibitions. In the 1960 Olympics the Russian heavyweight Yury Vlasov beat Paul Anderson's records set at the 1956 Olympics. A short time later, not to be outdone by the Russian and to verify his position as World's Strongest Man, Anderson lifted the same weight as the Russian three times in quick succession demonstrating unbelievable strength.