Chemerkin's Feat After Ashot Danielyan from Armenia did not pass the doping test the bronze medal was awarded to Andrei Chemerkin. It happened during the last days of Olympic Games '2000, but let's get back to September 26 when the superheavies' event concluded weightlifting competitions at the Millenium Olympics. We will not dwell on the technicl results of the event which can be found at the official sites devoted to the Games. We would just like to mention that Andrei's last meet when he ordered the weight that is unbelievable for the present days proved that sports and money are different categories for real sportsmen. Chemerkin was protecting his title of the strongest man in the world and did not even think that a smaller weight could let him win silver or bronze medal and, as a result, to get financial bonus from the National Olympic Committee. It proved that Andrei has psychology of a winner and is not going to be satisfied with low achievements. Even Ronnie Weller, who was always considered Chemerkin's rival, appreciated Andrei's actions, hugged him and they were pictured together by a photographer. Great disappointment was caused by the reaction of some journalists, who themselves participated in the Olympic Games before and later were adoring Andrei for his victories. These people have problems with getting rid of the Soviet psychology remnants, and they still take only gold medalists for heroes without paying attention to reasons of less succesful performances and writing articles and notes about what was at the top (if they were watching the events at all). We would like to wish Andrei success at the next competitions and to remind him that his hero is Vasiliy Alexeev who won "only" two Olympic golds. Andrei has many starts ahead of him and, thus, many more medals.
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