Monument to the Russian hero from the Dagestanis in the Stavropol region. Athlete Ivan Yarygin: biography, achievements, personal life and interesting facts Yarygin Ivan Sergeevich

Ivan Sergeevich Yarygin- athlete of the Soviet Union and Russia, freestyle wrestler, world champion, absolute champion of the USSR, twice won a gold medal at the Olympic Games.

In 1972 he became an Honored Master of Sports in freestyle wrestling.

Biography

Ivan was born on November 7, 1948 in Ust-Kamzas near Kemerovo. After which, he and his family moved and lived in the village of Sizaya, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Ivan considers the village of Sizaya to be his homeland.

Ivan was born into a typical village family, where he had ten brothers and sisters. Since childhood, Ivan stood out for his height and strength. Parents worked hard to feed all family members and involved the elders in the work. He was also destined to become a collective farmer, but Ivan was strongly drawn to sports. As a child, he constantly played football, which his parents were indignant about, because their son Ivan would soon have to start working in the field. After graduating from school, Yarygin went to the city of Abakan, the capital of Khakassia, with the goal of training to become a driver. Here he got into the freestyle wrestling section under the guidance of coach Vladimir Ilyich Charkov.

In sports circles, Ivan Yarygin is called “the last Russian hero” for his physical fitness, the nature of the fight and many victories. Contemporaries spoke of Ivan as a pleasant, friendly and easy-to-communicate person.

Rapid sports career

Since 1996, he trained in the city of Krasnoyarsk with Dmitry Georgievich Mindiashvili, the future best coach of the Soviet Union. He instilled in Yarygin the highest sense of responsibility.

Two years later, Ivan Sergeevich won the youth championships of Russia, and then the USSR. I prepared for the 1970 USSR Championship under the guidance of coaches Alexander Sergeevich Okhapkin and Vladimir Evgenievich Gusev.

In 1970, Yarygin became a prize-winner at the RSFSR Championship and champion of the USSR.

There have been defeats in the history of fighters. At the 1971 Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, he lost to Vladimir Gulyutkin from Kyiv.

Constant training has borne fruit.

In 1972, at the Olympic Games in Munich, Ivan set a world record, spending only 7.2 minutes on all his fights and at the same time defeating all his opponents. This has never been seen in the history of freestyle wrestling. This brought him his first Olympic medal.

In 1973, Yarygin won the World Universiade.

Ivan received his second Olympic medal in 1976 at the Olympics in Montreal. He had the honor of carrying the flag of his team at the closing of the 1976 Olympic Games.

Won the World Cup. During his career he became the Cup champion five times. Soon he became the winner at the international freestyle wrestling tournament in the capital of Georgia - Tbilisi.

For ten years, starting in 1982, Ivan was the head coach of the USSR national freestyle wrestling team. Ivan put his whole soul into this work. He has previously combined his coaching activities with his performances on the mat.

In 1993, he became president of the Russian Wrestling Federation and a member of the bureau of the International Federation of United Wrestling Styles. He was a member of these organizations until his death in 1997.

Death

On October 11, 1997, young Yarygin died in a car accident on the Makhachkala-Kislovodsk road in the Stavropol Territory near the city of Neftekumsk on the border with Dagestan. He was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow. There is a legend that a fortune teller predicted his tragic death shortly before the incident.

Memory

In 1990, an international tournament for the Yarygin prizes was held. The international tournament in memory of Yarygin is held every year in Krasnoyarsk at the Sports Palace named after him. Moscow also has a wrestling palace named after Ivan Yarygin.

A famous aircraft is named after him.

In 1998 in Moscow and in 2002 in Krasnoyarsk, monuments were opened in his honor. In the name of I.S. Several streets, a museum, etc. are named after Yarygin.

In 2001, a documentary film about the legendary wrestler Ivan Sergeevich was released.

Bibliography

Ivan Yarygin made a huge contribution to the development of wrestling and wrote several works on this topic. His book “You Go to the Carpet” was published in Moscow. And in 1995, his book “Severe Men’s Games” was published in Krasnoyarsk.

Yarygin Ivan Sergeevich is a Siberian Russian hero, multiple champion of the Olympics, the Soviet Union and Europe in freestyle wrestling, in whose memory the International Federation FILA established special competitions and even named a modern Russian bomber aircraft.

Childhood and teenage years

The future famous wrestler was born in the Kemerovo region, in the village of Ust-Kamzas on November 7, 1948 and was the sixth child in an ordinary Soviet village family. A little later, a large family moved to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the village of Sizaya, located in the Shushensky district. Yarygin spent his childhood and youth there and considered it his small homeland.

In order to feed ten children, the father, blacksmith Sergei Nikolaevich, and mother Evdokia Pavlovna had to work tirelessly, teaching the older children to hard rural work. Even among the strong and tall Siberians, Ivan stood out especially - he was very strong, tall and muscular. The life of an ordinary collective farmer awaited him, but the boy loved sports since childhood, especially football. At first he had little interest in wrestling. His father and mother did not encourage such hobbies of his, because he had to work in the fields. But whenever possible, Vanya tried to run away to another field - a football field, where he usually stood at the goal.

After graduating from school, Ivan attended a driver's course in Abakan and continued to play football. Experts who saw him play said that he could make an excellent professional goalkeeper. The career of the aspiring football player was radically changed by Vladimir Charkov, who was at that time the director of the wrestling school. Seeing the strongman, Charkov realized that Ivan was simply created for wrestling, and put a lot of effort into persuading Yarygin to attend the wrestling training at least once - the future champion selflessly kicked the ball and had no intention of changing his role. Charkov did not back down, succumbing to his persuasion, Ivan eventually went to one of the classes out of curiosity. Wrestling literally conquered him, abandoning his favorite football, Yarygin completely devoted himself to a new sport.

However, not only Charkov paid attention to the hero; the coaches from the basketball section also thought that Yarygin was simply born for basketball, but they were no longer able to lure the newly minted wrestler.

Sports achievements and the Olympics

In 1966, Yarygin moved to Krasnoyarsk and began training with the honored, famous coach Dmitry Mindiashvili. Personal perseverance and the desire to become the best contributed to rapid progress; Yarygin was never late for training, intensively polishing his wrestling technique, being very responsible in everything he did. Today, the famous coach, recognized as the best coach of the USSR and Russia, can justifiably be proud of his best student.

In 1968, Yarygin won several youth championships and began purposefully preparing for the USSR Championship with coaches Alexander Okhapkin and. The training yielded results - in 1970, Ivan became the champion of the RSFSR, and after that of the USSR, defeating Vladimir Gulyutkin, who was already the European champion, in the final.

The rivalry between Gulyutkin and Yarygin continued for several years, the championship passed from one to the other. The difficult choice of the coaching council who to send to the Olympics: a promising newcomer or an honored athlete, was determined by Dmitry Mindiashvili, who gave a written commitment that Ivan would win Olympic gold. Dmitry Georgievich risked his career, and the young athlete lived up to his coaching expectations.

At the Munich 1972 Olympics, Yarygin won clear victories in all fights, knocking out each of his seven opponents in just 7 minutes 20 seconds of total time. The Munich public went wild, watching how incredibly easily and simply, without much visible effort, he lifted and slammed heavy 100-kilogram athletes into the carpet with his shoulder blades. This time record has not yet been surpassed.

The first Olympic gold medal was only the beginning of Yarygin’s career growth; he won the World Championships in Tehran, the USSR and European championships.

Yarygin prepared for his second Olympics with particular persistence and passion, running up to 50 kilometers every day, doing push-ups, climbing a rope, not counting regular training. During one of them, during sparring, Ivan broke two ribs. Such a serious injury cast doubt on his participation in the Olympics, but Ivan and his coach still decided to fight. Despite all the difficulties and difficulties, at the Montreal Olympics in July 1976, Yarygin won a crushing victory and won his second Olympic gold. At the closing ceremony, he was given the honor of carrying the banner of the USSR national team.

In addition to Olympic medals, Yarygin has 5 victories at the World Cup in Toledo, won between 1973 and 1980. He won the European Championship three times and took silver twice. Ivan won all his victories in the weight category up to 100 kg.
Yarygin is the only athlete in the history of freestyle wrestling who defeated all his opponents in the three largest competitions.

Yarygin had no intention of stopping there and leaving the mat and began preparing for the 1980 Olympic Games. But at the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR in 1979, Ivan lost to his own student Ilya Mate. After that, he decided to give up the right to compete at the Moscow Olympics to his opponent, rightly believing that young people, if they are worthy, should be given a way. This act revealed the qualities inherent in a real Russian hero - not only strength, but also extraordinary generosity and kindness.

Beyond the carpet

The wrestler was respected in society. If someone began to behave inappropriately, all Ivan had to do was fold his arms across his chest, and the person immediately realized that he had crossed the line. In general, Yarygin was a friendly, sociable and somewhat simple-minded person. They say that once in the 90s he won a lot of money in a casino and the next day he gave it all away to his neighbors.

The “Russian hero” tried not to use his remarkable strength outside the sports fields. Only once did he get into a fight, defending a little boy from two bullies who were trying to beat him up. A few blows were enough for Yarygin to calm down the attackers.

Having stopped performing, Ivan Sergeevich did not part with sports. For ten years he worked as the head coach of the freestyle wrestling team. During this time, Soviet wrestlers were practically undefeated. In the entire history of Soviet sports, no coach has achieved such results.

Yarygin's coaching abilities manifested themselves in his youth, when he was just beginning his victorious path. While many athletes were secretive and reluctant to communicate with younger colleagues, Ivan always willingly shared with his comrades everything that he could do and showed them his best techniques.

Since 1992, Yarygin headed the wrestling federation. It was a difficult period when government funding for strength sports ceased. The eminent athlete rose to the occasion here too, clearly demonstrating excellent organizational skills. Yarygin again had to fight difficult and difficult battles, this time in the field of obtaining funds to support and develop athletes and his favorite sport.

Tragic death

Ivan Yarygin had many plans, the implementation of which was prevented by the unexpected tragic death of the athlete. In 1997, on October 11, in an accident on the Makhachkala-Kislovodsk highway, not far from Neftekumsk, Stavropol Territory. The famous champion died. Something similar had already happened to other members of his family, shortly before, under the same circumstances, his son almost died. Ivan Yarygin was 48 years old.

In memory of the athlete and as a sign of his merits

FILA established the I. S. Yarygin tournament, held annually in Krasnoyarsk;
One of the Russian modern Tu-160 aircraft is named after him;
in Moscow, a memorial plaque named after him was unveiled in the Olympic Village;
A monument to him was erected in Krasnoyarsk in 2002.
Ivan Yarygin is the owner of a large number of titles and awards, he is the champion of the USSR, Europe, the world, the Olympics in Munich 1972 and Montreal 1976, and was awarded many orders. Ivan Yarygin wrote two books: “You Go to the Mat,” 1989 and “Severe Men’s Games,” 1995.

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Born in the village of Ust-Kamzas, Kemerovo region.

As a child, he and his family moved to the village of Sizaya in the Krasnoyarsk Territory . After school I went to Abakan study to become a driver. Trained in the freestyle wrestling section of coach Vladimir Charkova.

Since 1966 trained in Krasnoyarsk with freestyle wrestling coach D. Mindiashvili.

In 1968 received the title of Master of Sports in Sambo.

In 1970 became the champion of Russia in freestyle wrestling.

Olympic gold

At the 1972 Olympics Yaryginkept clean victories in all fights. According to the rules of those years, up to 9 minutes were allotted for each fight. Yarygin spent only 7 minutes 20 seconds on all 7 contractions. No one has yet managed to surpass this record.

In July 1976 in Montreal Yarygin won his second Olympic gold medal. During training sparringbroke two ribs, but even with an injury he became the winner of the Games. He was entrusted with the honor of carrying the flag of the USSR national team at the closing of the Olympics.

In 1979 Yarygin lost the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR to the Ukrainian Ilya Mate and gave him the right to compete Olympics-80 in Moscow.

In 1982 became the head coach of the USSR national team. During the 10 years of his tenure in this post, the team became world and European champions seven times, and twice won the Olympic Games in the team competition.

In 1992 elected president of the Russian Wrestling Federation.

On October 11, 1997, he died in a car accident on the Makhachkala-Kislovodsk highway in the Stavropol Territory. He was buried at Troekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Monument to Yarygin in Krasnoyarsk

As a sign of Ivan Yarygin’s special services to world sports, the International Amateur Wrestling Federation established a tournament for the prizes of I.S. in 1990. Yarygin (before 1997 - named after Ivan Yarygin, after 1997 - in his memory). The first tournament was held in Abakan, and since 1991 Krasnoyarsk has become the venue.

In Moscow, the Olympic Village bears the name of I. Yarygin, where in 1998, on the anniversary of his death, a monument was erected to him. In 2004, the Wrestling Palace named after was built in Moscow. I. Yarygina. In Krasnoyarsk, the KSPU Institute of Combat Sports and the Sports Palace on the island are named after him. Relaxation, river boat. In 2001, the TU-204 aircraft received his name. In 1998, the Ivan Yarygin Foundation was created, headed by the athlete’s widow Natalya Yarygina.

Sports achivments

• Two-time Olympic champion (1972, Munich; 1976, Montreal)
• World Champion (1973)
• European Champion (1972, 1975, 1976)
• Silver medalist of the European Championship (1970, 1974)
• World Cup winner (1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980)
• Winner of the World Universiade (1973)
• Winner of international tournaments
• USSR Champion (1972, 1973, 1974)
• Absolute champion of the USSR (1974)

Ivan Sergeevich Yarygin is a famous athlete, Soviet freestyle wrestler. In the sports and sports environment, he is called the “Russian hero” both for his physique, his fighting style and numerous achievements in his discipline. Ivan Yarygin, whose height and weight are quite impressive (weight - more than 100 kg, height - around 190 cm), has achieved a lot in his life. Even the modern Russian supersonic bomber aircraft from the Tu-160 series is named after this fighter. And the International Amateur Wrestling Federation established special competitions in memory of Yarygin. The first such event was held in Abakan, and subsequent ones in Krasnoyarsk.

Yarygin Ivan Sergeevich: biography

Some sources indicate that the athlete was born in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the village of Sizaya. In fact, he was born in the village of Ust-Kamzas, in the Kemerovo region, and his family moved to Sizaya only some time later. And yet, Yarygin admitted that he considers Sizaya his small homeland.

Living in the Krasnoyarsk Territory did its noble job in the development of a young wrestler. After school, he began attending training under the guidance of Dmitry Georgievich Mindiashvili, a famous coach who was later recognized as the best coach of the USSR and then Russia. Today Mindiashvili can be proud of a significant number of books written, including two encyclopedias and a number of teaching aids. And young Yarygin undoubtedly played an important role in this, being one of the best students.

However, the future champion did not live long. After graduating from school, he went to study in Abakan. He studied to become an ordinary driver, like a diligent Soviet young man. However, he did not give up sports and in 1968 he won the youth championships of first Russia and then the USSR. After this, he began intensive preparations for the USSR Championship, studying at that time with Alexander Okhapkin. The training was not in vain - in 1970, Yarygin became the champion of the RSFSR, and after that - the USSR. The hero has finally shown himself.

Bogatyr at the Olympic Games

Of course, the young hero was familiar not only with victories, but also with defeats. In 1971, he lost to Kyiv wrestler Vladimir Gulyutkin. However, this did not bother him. The following year he competed in the Munich Olympics, where he set a major record: he defeated all his opponents in just 7 minutes and 20 seconds. I never knew such speed in those days. At this Olympics he earned a gold medal, and it was not the only one on his record. Ivan Yarygin's career growth was very rapid. Already in 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, he won his second gold. The real Soviet hero was respected so much that they gave him the honor of carrying the banner of the USSR national team at the closing of these Olympic Games.

Subsequently, Yarygin had victories at the World Championships in Tehran, and at the European and USSR championships.

Yarygin is an outstanding coach

Since 1993, Ivan Sergeevich Yarygin has worked as a coach and head of the Russian Wrestling Federation. He performed this duty until his death (1997). This period in his activity is also a struggle, and much more complex and difficult. In the new Russia, the state stopped funding wrestling and other strength sports, and Yarygin had to miraculously get money on his own to support his favorite sport.

Ivan Yarygin has carried out coaching activities before, combining it with his own performances on the carpet. It is curious that at the next Spartakiad he lost to Ilya Mate - again, a Ukrainian wrestler who was his own student. And when Yarygin was subsequently offered to perform at the next Olympics, the athlete unexpectedly ceded this right to Mate. “It’s good, of course, to be a three-time Olympic medalist,” Yarygin said then, “but it’s more important to give way to young talents for whom everything is just beginning.” This was the whole “Russian hero” - not only strong, but also unusually kind and generous.

A good attitude towards both young people and even competitors was evident even when Yarygin was just beginning to make progress in wrestling. Coaches were accustomed to seeing their favorites as cold-blooded, secretive, not allowing younger athletes to approach them, so they perceived Yarygin’s actions almost as blasphemy: he willingly shared the secrets of his skill with his comrades, taught them, showed them his best techniques. The mentors tried to restrain him, but Yarygin was stubborn: let the guys study.

By the way, he almost never used his remarkable heroic strength “in practice.” This became possible due to the fact that Yarygin was respected in society; good people respected him, but not so good people feared him. It was enough for the athlete to fold his arms across his chest for those around him to understand that someone had begun to behave too defiantly. Only once did he defend a little boy from two bandits who were beating him. The hooligans were tough guys, but a few blows were enough for Yarygin to “calm down” the scoundrels.

The athlete was generally very sociable, friendly and even somewhat rustic in a peasant way. They say that in the 90s he decided to play in a casino and won a large amount of money, and the next day he took it and distributed it to his neighbors.

Ivan Yarygin: biography, relationships with family

The future world-famous wrestler was born into a typical Soviet, even, one might say, “old Russian” village family. In total, his parents had ten children. To feed them, mother and father had to work hard, and older children also joined in agricultural work. Despite the fact that Russian (and even Soviet) peasants are, in principle, strong and tall people, Ivan especially stood out in the family - he was very tall, muscular and strong. Fate foreshadowed the life of an ordinary collective farmer, but Ivan was very fond of sports from an early age. First of all, he fell in love with football, of course, but at first he didn’t even think about wrestling. Father and mother were not very good about this activity, because the time had come for their son to go to work in the field, but Ivan stood his ground: at the first opportunity, he ran with his peers to another field - a football field, where he most often performed the duties of a goalkeeper.

Everyone wanted Yarygin!

Yarygin also played football in Abakan. Local football fans even predicted a career as a professional goalkeeper for him. The director of the Abakan meat processing plant even intended to make him a goalkeeper in the team of his enterprise. However, Vladimir Charkov, the director of the wrestling school, noticed a strongman who was simply created for wrestling and was clearly “not standing in his place.” Charkov did everything possible to approach Yarygin and invite him to attend wrestling classes at least once. Yarygin agreed... and soon abandoned his favorite football, completely devoting himself to a new hobby.

However, Charkov was not the only one who wanted to “get” the hero. The coaches from the basketball section also wanted this, who also thought that Yarygin was created for their sport. However, the newly minted fighter could no longer be stopped.

In this story, Ivan Yarygin turned out to be similar to another great wrestler and also Ivan - Poddubny. He also came from a peasant (more precisely, Cossack) family and also had to work as a farm laborer in the field. Not wanting such a fate, Poddubny went to Sevastopol and worked as a port loader, and later tried himself in the wrestling arena. The parallels between the two legendary wrestlers don't end here.

Death of a hero

Yarygin Ivan Sergeevich, whose photo you see in the article, passed away suddenly and tragically... When you look at such people, you get the impression that they are capable of entering into a fight even with death itself and emerging victorious. However, Ivan Yarygin was unlucky: he died tragically at a fairly young age: in 1997 he was only 48 years old. The disaster overtook him on the Makhachkala-Kislovodsk highway in the Stavropol Territory, not far from Neftekumsk.

The famous “Russian hero” had many more plans that he really wanted to implement. He especially loved the city of Krasnoyarsk, which, like the village of Sizaya, became for him a kind of “big small homeland”. He devoted a lot of work and effort to the development of sports in Krasnoyarsk, which resulted in freestyle wrestling competitions, which were attended by athletes from dozens of foreign countries.

Dmitry Mindiashvili, the first coach of Ivan Yarygin, is still in the ranks, he outlived his student. In the first Krasnoyarsk tournament in 1997, the Russian team took first place, and this became the best gift to “the Russian hero himself.”

There is a legend that a fortune teller predicted Yarygin’s death in a car accident. You can believe in it, you can not, but a few months before this accident, his son almost died in about the same one. Something similar happened shortly before Yarygin’s death with other members of his family.

The Siberian nugget became famous not only for his victories, but also was an example of Russian character, honor and dignity outside the carpet.

“FIT, BUT NOT TRAINED”

Wrestling in Russia has always been more than just a sport, and its outstanding representatives cannot be listed on a piece of paper. One of them stands apart in this stellar company. Ivan Yarygin is a ready-made hero of novels and patriotic films, a man of boundless kindness and breadth of character, like Siberia, a classic image of a Russian hero. They said about him that a wrestler is not a profession, but a way of life and a way of life.

Like his great predecessor Ivan Poddubny, Yarygin as a child did not even think about a career as a wrestler and did not study special techniques, although according to legend, at the age of 15 he could beat any stocky man in a logging camp with his belts. Being the seventh child in the family, from childhood he helped his father and older brothers with work, and spent all his free time in a vacant lot, playing football with the boys. Tall and long-armed Yarygin could have become an excellent goalkeeper, but fate and Krasnoyarsk wrestling coach Vladimir Charkov, who saw remarkable inclinations in the boy, prepared a different destiny for him.

Yarygin resisted the coach’s persuasion for a long time, but in the end he decided to try. The debut turned into painful defeats and last place in the tournament. It was not in his nature to retreat, and the desire to prove it to himself and others took over. Ivan took up the fight thoroughly. He soon found himself in the army, where he attracted the attention of the famous wrestler Dmitry Mindiashvili, who gave the young man a scathing description: “Fit, but not trained” - and transferred him to the sports company.

UPS AND DOWNS

The first success with the new mentor was not long in coming. Yarygin effortlessly won all the bouts at the national youth championship in Riga, and soon became the champion of the USSR among adults. In those years, as in modern times, winning a national championship was sometimes more difficult than becoming an Olympic champion.

Yarygin went to his first European Championship in full confidence of his victory, but in the final he learned a lesson for life and was tactically outplayed by the experienced Turk Ahmet Ayik.

Yarygin's performance at the Games in Munich is still called the best example of freestyle wrestling in history. The Krasnoyarsk wrestler demonstrated almost incredible speed for a 100-kilogram giant. On the way to the Olympic gold, Ivan spent only 7 minutes 20 seconds, defeating all his opponents ahead of schedule. This record remains unbroken to this day. It was not easy even for Yarygin to cope with the worldwide fame that had washed over him. He called 1974 a black year in his career, since he could not win a single competition for a long time. The opponents thoroughly studied Ivan's fighting style, while he himself allowed himself to relax. The defeats became the necessary impetus to become stronger and repeat the Olympic triumph in Montreal.

“Ivan experienced every loss very strongly,” recalled his wife Natalya. “I didn’t blame anyone for the defeats, but I completely regretted that I couldn’t make it to the third Olympics.”

That defeat at the Union Championship finally convinced Yarygin to end his career as an athlete and switch to coaching. “During a fight, I think more about whether my bald spot is visible,” joked 32-year-old Ivan.

CHARACTER

Even when he was an athlete, Yarygin willingly shared his skills with young people, showing everyone his signature techniques in detail. The coaches did not always like such openness, and therefore they tried to restrain Ivan, setting him as an example Alexander Medved, who always kept young people at a distance and did not shy away from once again intimidating a young competitor. Yarygin couldn’t do that and was sincerely surprised: “Well, let the guys study!” He willingly shared not only his experience, but also his money. Already in the 90s, having won 160 thousand dollars in a casino, the next day he easily distributed it to all his neighbors: “Such money does not bring income, it must be given as a gift.”

In the role of mentor, Yarygin succeeded no less, preparing the strongest team in the history of the USSR in the 80s. Two-time Olympic champion Arsen Fadzaev recalled how at the Olympics in Seoul he could not make the required weight. Only the composure of Yarygin helped him avoid failure, who went with the athlete to the bathhouse, ordered the door to be closed, and after half an hour the extra half a kilogram was gone.

Yarygin's students and relatives feared and respected him so much that they understood him from a half-gesture. If in a male company Ivan Sergeevich folded his arms on his chest, it means that someone is behaving too arrogantly. Usually such a warning instantly sobered up the opponent in a dispute, and therefore Yarygin did not have to use his heroic strength. The only exception was one case in a trolleybus, when a wrestler rushed to the aid of a boy who was being beaten by two huge foreheads. To sober up the scattered hooligans and send them running, a couple of blows were enough for Ivan.

FATAL PROPHECY

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yarygin headed a united federation of both styles of wrestling. In order to preserve his native sport, he had to learn new skills, because what was happening in the 90s fit the definition of “fighting without rules” more than wrestling. The legendary wrestler had to constantly deal with lies and betrayal, and for such an honest person, every deception of his friends was a strong blow. However, Ivan had enough strength and courage to cope with this and unite the complex wrestling family, which to this day feels like a single whole at the memorial in his memory.

On that fateful night of October 11, 1997, Yarygin was returning to his wife from a competition in Dagestan. Not far from Neftekumsk, the BMW, where the wrestler was with his friends, drifted into the oncoming lane, and at a speed of 140 km/h the car rammed a truck standing on the side of the road. According to legend, a fortune teller predicted Yarygin’s death in a car accident, and a few years before that, an evil fate killed Ivan’s father and three brothers. Finally, two months before his death in a car accident, his son Sergei miraculously survived.

But even after Yarygin’s death, his house is annually full of guests on Ivan Sergeevich’s birthday - November 7th. It’s rare that living people can gather about a hundred friends at one table, who don’t even need to be specially invited. The great wrestler Ivan Yarygin is still alive in the hearts of his friends, colleagues and rivals, because he knew how to value this friendship.