Leonid Ivanovich Zhabotinsky (born January 28, 1938, Uspenska, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.—died January 14, 2016, Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine) was a Soviet weightlifter who won gold medals in the heavyweight class (+90 kg [+198 pounds]) at the 1964 Toyko and 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and set 19 world records over a 12-year period (1963–74).
Zhabotinsky was born into a Cossack family and grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine, under Nazi military occupation during World War II. He was active in sports, notably shot put, in school and began to focus on weightlifting while working in a local tractor factory. He competed in his first state championship in 1957, winning the bronze medal. Zhabotinsky stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.9 meters) tall and was exceptionally heavy, weighing 165 kg (364 pounds). At the 1964 Games in Tokyo, he battled his U.S.S.R. teammate, defending champion Yury Vlasov, in a dramatic contest, setting a world record in the clean and jerk to win the gold. Renowned for his great zeal and win-at-any-cost attitude, Zhabotinsky pretended to concede defeat with one lift to go, as a ploy to unsettle Vlasov and the other competitors. He then returned for his final attempt, infuriating his opponents and winning with a total of 572.5 kg (1,262 pounds), setting a new Olympic record to become “The World’s Strongest Man.” Zhabotinsky was chosen to carry the Soviet flag at the beginning of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where he again captured the heavyweight gold, with a total of 572.5 kg.
Nicknamed “Big Zhabo,” Leonid Ivanovich Zhabotinsky was the weightlifting idol of a teenage Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A knee injury ended his career in 1974, but Zhabotinsky remained active as a weightlifting coach. He graduated from the Kharkiv Pedagogical Institute in 1964, and following his retirement as a colonel from the military in 1991, he taught at the Moscow Institute of Business and Law.