| Valeri Belenki | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Valeri Vladimirovich Belenki | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1969-09-05) 5 September 1969 (age 55) Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gymnastics career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Men's artistic gymnastics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |  Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Former countries represented |  Soviet Union  Azerbaijan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Valeri Vladimirovich Belenki (Russian: Валерий Владимирович Беленький, German: Valeri Belenki; born 5 September 1969) is a retired Azerbaijani artistic gymnast who competed in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics.
Career
Belenki was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union (present day Azerbaijan), in a Jewish family.
He competed for the Soviet Union/Unified Team until 1992 when this federation was disbanded following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Belenki's greatest achievements are the team gold and all around bronze he won with the Unified Team in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Belenky also won gold in the pommel horse event at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, where he competed for the USSR.
Because Azerbaijan did not have a gymnastics federation for him to compete for in the 1993 world championships in Birmingham, Belenky instead competed as an unattached athlete. In 1994 he became a German citizen and represented that nation in the 1996 Olympics, helping the team to a seventh-place finish and coming 6th in the all-around.
In 2013, he was elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 2015, he was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame as a representative of Azerbaijan.
See also
References
- Taylor, Paul (2004). Jews and the Olympic Games: The Clash Between Sport and Politics : With a Complete Review of Jewish Olympic Medallists. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 9781903900871.
- "International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame: Valeri Belenki".
External links
- Valery Belenky at Gymn Forum
- Valery Belenky at the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
- Valeri Belenki at the International Gymnastics Federation
- Valeri Belenki at Olympedia (archive)
- Valeri Belenki at Olympics.com
| Olympic Champions in Artistic Gymnastics – Men's Team All-Around | |
|---|---|
| Summary | |
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1992  Unified Team (EUN): Valery Belenky, Igor Korobchinsky, Grigory Misutin, Vitaly Scherbo, Rustam Sharipov, Alexei Voropaev |
Hendricus Thijsen (NED)
not awarded
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- 1969 births
- Living people
- Soviet male artistic gymnasts
- Azerbaijani male artistic gymnasts
- German male artistic gymnasts
- Olympic gymnasts for the Unified Team
- Olympic gymnasts for Germany
- Gymnasts at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Gymnasts at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- Olympic gold medalists for the Unified Team
- Olympic bronze medalists for the Unified Team
- World champion gymnasts
- Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
- Gymnasts from Baku
- Soviet Azerbaijani people
- Azerbaijani Jews
- Olympic medalists in gymnastics
- Soviet Jews
- International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame inductees
- Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
- Naturalized citizens of Germany
- Naturalised sports competitors
- Competitors at the 1990 Goodwill Games
- Goodwill Games medalists in gymnastics
- 20th-century German sportsmen
- 20th-century Azerbaijani sportsmen
- Azerbaijani sportspeople stubs
- European artistic gymnast stubs
- German artistic gymnast stubs