This story is developing as I get more information, but I realized while writing about Mikhail Bukharov that I had heard of his before, in my writeup on Gregory Novak. It seems the two of them brawled after the Russian Weightlifting Championships, mere weeks after Novak silvered in the Olympics with a single attempt on each of the three lifts due to injury. Reread that- the man took a single attempt in the snatch, a single in the clean and jerk, and a single in the press, then submitted those three lifts to the judges and took second. THAT is a fucking boss move. Sadly, he got his ass kicked by Russia’s first medalist in weightlifting in a bar and that ended his career (and ultimately the old man’s life by heart attack while riding a train to Moscow to see his superiors for punishment).
