Bruce Robert Baumgartner is a retired American amateur wrestler and current athletic director at the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania near Erie, Pennsylvania….who won the gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the 100+ kg freestyle wrestling championship. Baumgartner ranked as one of the top super-heavyweight freestyle wrestlers for more than a decade….winning his first World Championship medal, a bronze, in 1983….confirming his status with the Communist Bloc (Eastern European) wrestlers by winning in 1986, clinching his first of his three world titles.
In his second Olympic final at the 1988 Seoul Olympics….he took the silver medal….losing to Georgian Davit Gobejishvili. Four years later, in 1992, he won the rematch in Barcelona, en route to a second Olympic gold. After winning world titles in 1993 and 1995….Baumgartner was favored to win his third gold in Atlanta….but a loss to Russian Andrey Shumilin left him with a bronze medal.
In addition to his three World Championship titles and his two gold medals at the Olympics….Baumgartner amassed three golds at the Pan American Games….17 American titles….and eight World Cup wins….an NCAA National Championship….2 x NCAA Runner-Up finishes….2 x AAU National Titles….and a Junior National title.
In 1998, Baumgartner was inducted into the Indiana State University Athletic Hall of Fame….in 2003, the Missouri Valley Conference named him an ‘Institutional Great’ and inducted him into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame….in 2008 he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame….inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002 and the International Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame (FILA) in 2003.
In this video clip….Bruce Baumgartner wrestles Romanian Vasile Andrei.
