Lopatin Evgeny Ivanovich - Soviet weightlifter. Winner of the 1952 Olympic Games Silver Medal. Champion of the 1950 European tournament, which was held in Paris.
Biography
The future athlete was born at the very end of the winter of 1917. Eugene's childhood was very difficult, the height of the turmoil and revolution in Russia, poverty and deprivation, in addition, his father died in 1921 from cholera. Six years after the tragedy, the Lopatin family moved to Saratov. There Zhenya entered the RUZD Polytechnic School, which he successfully graduated from. In the spring of 1937, he left for Leningrad, where he continued his studies at the textile institute. But after only two weeks, he left his studies in the northern capital and returned to his homeland, where he continued his education at the local agricultural institute named after A. Kalinin.
The beginning of a sports career
In the same troubled thirty-seventh, the famous author of books on weightlifting Luchkin arrived in the city of Saratov. It so happened that Eugene had a chance to meet him personally, and this acquaintance turned his whole life upside down. Lopatin decided to get serious about weightlifting. Only three months of intensive training - and already in March 1938, Lopatin takes the first trophy in his career. He became the featherweight champion at the regional tournament. It took the athlete another year to pass the master of sports standard in the weight category up to sixty kilograms.
In March 1939, Eugene had a son, who was named Sergei. In the spring of 1940, he took part in the team competition of the Soviet Union. In the individual competition, he took only ninth place. In June, together with his wife and one-year-old son, the weightlifter went to live in Leningrad, where he again decided to take up studies. He entered the Lenin Electromechanical Institute, where he was immediately admitted to the sports team.
War years
In 1941, Evgeny Ivanovich Lopatin was enrolled in the second rifle and machine gun school in Leningrad, by that time his second son had already been born. In September 1941, the blockade began, and the military leadership decided to evacuate the school to the town of Glazov. His wife and two children were unable to get out of the besieged city. A few months later, the youngest son Eugene died. Lopatin himself, after completing his studies, went to the Stalingrad Front, where he immediately headed an anti-tank unit with the rank of lieutenant.
In the fall of 1942, Lopatin was seriously wounded and was sent to the Saratov hospital. There he met his family, son and wife, who had been taken out of besieged Leningrad the day before. Having recovered from his injury, he again rushed to the front, but he was not allowed to fight further. Instead, Evgeny was appointed physical instructor of the communications school of the city of Kuibyshev. In 1944, after a long break, he returned to the sport.
Further career
In 1945 and 1946, the athlete took second place in allied competitions. In 1947 he took the title of champion of the USSR. The next year was no less successful and brought Evgeny Lopatin the championship at the national tournament. At the 1952 Olympics, he was injured, but took a silver medal. The injury did not allow Evgeny to continue his sports career, and he took over as a coach at the Dynamo sports organization. In July 2011, on the 21st, he died at his home in Moscow. He was buried at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery.
