page_title: Yury Vlasov
section_title: Legacy and awards
hierarchical_section_title: Yury Vlasov / Legacy and awards
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Марка СССР
context_page_description: Yury Petrovich Vlasov is a Soviet writer and retired heavyweight weightlifter and politician. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in 1960 and a silver in 1964; at both games he was the Olympic flag bearer for the Soviet Union. During his career Vlasov won four world titles and set 31 ratified world records. He retired in 1968 and became a prominent writer and later a politician. He was a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and then of the Russian State Duma and took part in the 1996 Russian presidential election.
context_section_description: At the peak of his popularity Vlasov was frequently included to international delegations visiting foreign leaders, such as Fidel Castro and Charles de Gaulle. He was a favorite of Nikita Khrushchev; Leonid Brezhnev offered him a position of a personal adviser on China, and Yuri Andropov was supervising his book The Vladimirov diaries: Yenan, China, 1942–1945 as it involved Soviet intelligence activities.
  Arnold Schwarzenegger, seven-times Mr. Olympia, considered Vlasov as a major motivation for his career as a bodybuilder and a strongman. They first met at the 1961 World Championships in Vienna when Schwarzenegger was only 14. Vlasov does not recall what he said to Schwarzenegger then, but remembers that he was excited after winning the championships and encouraged Schwarzenegger to continue strength training no matter what. In 1988, while filming Red Heat in Moscow, Schwarzenegger insisted on meeting Vlasov, who by then fell out of grace of Soviet leaders, and gave him his photograph signed "To my Idol Yuri Vlasov".
  For his weightlifting victories Vlasov was awarded the Order of Lenin (1960) and Order of the Badge of Honour (1964 or 1965). He was a member of the Union of Soviet Writers and is a member of the Union of Russian Writers.
caption: A 1960 Soviet postal stamp dedicated to the Vlasov's victory at the 1960 Games
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