Yuriy Sedykh, a two-time Olympic champion in hammer throw whose world record from 1986 still stands, has passed away. He was 66.
The Russian track and field federation said Sedykh died early on Tuesday following a heart attack.
“Deeply mourn the loss of Yuriy Sedykh,” World Athletics senior vice-president and pole vault great Sergei Bubka wrote on Twitter. “For me, Yuriy was a friend, a wise mentor.”
Sedykh won gold at the 1976 and 1980 Olympics, but missed the 1984 Games because of a Soviet boycott. He claimed silver at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and won a world title in 1991.
Sedykh threw a world record 86.74m at the European Championships in Stuttgart, a mark which still stands. At this year’s Tokyo Olympics, all 12 finalists in men’s hammer were born after Sedykh set the record.
He made his huge throw at a time when track and field was starting to realise the scale of performance-enhancing drug use.
Former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov wrote in a book last year that Sedykh was “a huge steroid abuser” who benefited from a Soviet cover-up.
