Viktor Saneev

Tibilisi, January 4 (PL)-- Three-time Olympic triple jump champion of the former Soviet Union (USSR) Viktor Saneev died at the age of 76, the Georgian National Olympic Committee said.

Declared as Honorary Master of Sports of the USSR, his career was marked by several awards including being the holder of three world records, both outdoors and indoors, and thus became the best Georgian athlete of the 20th century.

Saneev was born on October 3, 1945 in the city of Sukhumi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

He won gold medals in the triple jump at the Olympic Games of Mexico 1968, Munich 1972 and Montreal 1976, as well as runner-up in Moscow 1980.

His leap to the international elite came in 1967, when at the European Cup in Kiev he beat some of the most important triple jumpers of the time, including world record holder Jozef Schmidt.

At the end of his career as an athlete, he worked for the Dynamo sports company in Tbilisi.  After the collapse of the USSR, he moved to Australia.