He won an Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1956 and a bronze medal in 1960, competing for the Soviet Union.
This marked the first time since the 1936 Summer Olympics that neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union/Russia, had won the most gold medals at a Summer Olympics.
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Several teams who had qualified to compete were absent as a result of the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott, including the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and North Korea.