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“Bear of Bellenberg” died at the age of 67

German weightlifting legend Rudolf Mang is dead. The silver medal winner of the 1972 Summer Olympics died in Munich on Monday (14.03.2018) evening at the age of 67 years as a result of a heart attack in his gym in Bellenberg, Bavaria.

Known as the “Bear of Bellenberg” Mang won the silver medal in the weight class over 110 kilograms at the Summer Games in Munich, behind the Russian Vasily Alexeev.

In the course of his career, which he had to end in 1974 for health reasons, Mang set 42 German records and four senior and 19 junior world records.

In 2015 Mang gave an interview to the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. The occasion was his 65th birthday and his upcoming pension. “At a general exam after Olympics, the doctors told me how bad my joints were, so I stopped competing in 1974 at the age of 24,” he said. After that, he made fitness equipment and ran a studio in Bellenberg. “There I am today, and almost every day,” said Mang at the time in the interview. “I don’t have any more ambition to lift heavy weights every day, I prefer to sit on the bike ergometer and do something for the stamina.”

The IWF sends condolences to the German Weightlifting Federation and the Mang family.

Source: www.spiegel.de