Weightlifting
b. Nov. 16, 1936, Jerusalem, Israel
The longest weightlifting competition in Olympic history was the 1960 featherweight championship battle between Berger, the defending champion, and Yevgeny Minayev of the Soviet Union. It lasted ten hours, finally ending at 4 a.m., when Berger failed to lift 152.5 kilograms in the jerk. He had beaten Minayev six times in a row entering the Olympics, but this time he had to settle for second.
Berger came to the United States and become a naturalized citizen as a teen-ager. He won the U. S. featherweight championship seven times, from 1955 through 1961 and in 1964. He was world champion in 1958 and 1961, finishing second in 1957, 1959, and 1963. He set a world record of 352.5 kilograms for three lifts when he won an Olympic gold medal in 1956. Berger added the 1964 silver medal to the one he'd claimed in 1960, and he was also the Pan-American Games featherweight champion in 1959 and 1963.
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