Charles Rigoulot

3 November 1903 – 22 August 1962 · Le Vésinet, Seine-et-Oise → Paris

Charles Rigoulot won the light-heavyweight weightlifting title at the 1924 Paris Olympics, turned professional as "the strongest man in the world", and in 1930 became the first man after Apollon himself to lift Apollon's Wheels overhead. He went on to careers as a professional wrestler, racing driver, actor and singer.

Origins

Rigoulot was born on 3 November 1903 in Le Vésinet, west of Paris, the youngest of eight children of a butcher. He began in athletics as a sprinter and trained with weights from boyhood; at about sixteen he was noticed lifting heavy lithographic stones by the coach Jean Dame, later president of the French weightlifting federation, who took charge of his training. He was French light-heavyweight champion in 1923.

The work

At the 1924 Paris Olympics, lifting in the 82.5 kg class, he won the gold medal with a total of 502.5 kg over the five lifts then contested. On 6 October 1925 at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris he narrowly beat the 1920 Olympic champion Ernest Cadine in a ten-lift challenge match, and beat him again, as a professional, at the Vélodrome d'Hiver in January 1926. For the next five years he toured France and Europe in pursuit of records. A serious injury while attempting a 185 kg clean and jerk at the Salle Wagram on 4 May 1931 ended his lifting career.

He then turned to professional wrestling, meeting Henri Deglane among others before large crowds in the 1930s, and to motor racing: he won the Bol d'Or at Montlhéry in 1937 and drove at Le Mans the same year. He also performed as a singer, stage and film actor, and in a hand-to-hand act with his wife, the gymnast Magda Roche.

Notable feats

Rigoulot was credited at the time with dozens of world records across the many lifts then recognised; the figures given in different sources do not always agree. Those most often cited include:

• Olympic gold medal, 82.5 kg class, Paris 1924 (total 502.5 kg over five lifts).
• Eight official world records between 1923 and 1926.
• As a professional: two-hands clean and jerk of 182.5 kg (402 lb) in 1929, and a right-hand snatch of 116 kg (256 lb) in 1930, according to French sources.
• Overhead lift of Apollon's Wheels, the 166 kg (366 lb) railway-wheel barbell with a handle about 5 cm thick, in 1930.

Apollon's Wheels had belonged to the French strongman Louis Uni, "Apollon", and their thick, non-revolving axle made them extremely hard to clean. Rigoulot's 1930 lift was the first by anyone but Apollon; French sources describe him as the only man able to lift them until John Davis did so in Paris around 1949–50.

Method

Rigoulot was coached by Jean Dame and belonged to the Paris clubs Pons Amical Club, Club Athlétique des Gobelins and Stade Français. He was a fast and athletic man — he was credited with 11.6 seconds for 100 metres — and at about 1.73 m and 82 kg was a light-heavyweight throughout his lifting career. He left no substantial training book.

Legacy

Rigoulot links the music-hall strongman culture that Apollon represented with modern Olympic lifting: he won Olympic gold under federation rules and then repeated the most famous stage feat of the previous generation. During the Second World War he was taken prisoner and held in Stalag II-D in Pomerania until March 1943. From 1953 he was sports director for Ricard. He died in Paris on 22 August 1962, and a Paris gymnasium and stadium at the Porte Brancion bear his name. His daughter Dany Rigoulot became French figure-skating champion.

Disputed and unresolved

Rigoulot's record list is hard to fix: contemporary claims ran to more than a hundred "world records" of strength, many in lifts no longer contested, and English and French sources give different figures and dates for his best snatches and cleans and jerks. Accounts of his wartime captivity also differ, as do accounts of the cause of his death (cancer in French sources, a heart attack in some English ones).