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Ivan Maksymovych Poddubny ( Іва́н Максимович Підду́бний; Ива́н Максимович Подду́бный. 8 October 1871 – 8 August 1949) was a professional wrestler from the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.

Biography
Poddubniy was born on John the Apostle day in 1871 into a family of Zaporozhian Cossack farmers in the village of Krasenivka, in the Zolotonosha uyezd of the Poltava Governorate within the Russian Empire (present-day Zolotonosha Raion of Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine). He was the eldest of seven children and had to leave home before the age of 20 because his parents could not provide for all of them. Stocky, sturdy and strong enough to wrestle a bull to the ground, Poddubny worked as a stevedore in the ports of Sevastopol and Feodosiya for seven years, earning nickname "Ivan the Great." In Feodosiya, he started to train with kettlebells and participated in some Greco-Roman wrestling matches. Sometime around 1897-1898, he started touring with circuses and performed at first in Sevastopol and later in Kiev arenas.

In 1903 Poddubny joined the Saint Petersburg Athletic Club with which he participated in World Championships in Moscow and Paris. Two years later he became the wrestling world champion in Paris and toured Italy, Algeria, Belgium, Berlin, winning a championship in Nice. Poddubny won two more World Cups in Paris and Milan in 1906.

In England in 1907, Georg Hackenschmidt was visited by four strong wrestlers: Constant Le Marin, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Ivan Poddubny and Joe Rogers. All four challenged Hackenschmidt to wrestle them. Not able to take all four on simultaneously, he suggested they compete amongst themselves and he would challenge the winner. Le Marin and Zbyszko lost their matches. Poddubmy and Rogers were finalists and Rogers won on a technicality.

Before returning to his home village in 1910, he won several more world cups in Vienna, Paris, and Frankfurt.

He did not waste his earnings and upon his return home bought 200 ha of land, two houses in neighboring Bohodukhivka village, an oil mill, a small store and two mills, one of which was located in Orzhytsia in what is today Poltava Oblast. Around that time, he married his first wife. Sometime in 1913, Poddubny participated in another World Cup in Moscow where he became a runner-up. It was then that his wife left him for another, taking his gold medals.

In 1920s he toured the United States, remaining undefeated while competing in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Ivan met his future second wife while touring in Rostov and they married in 1923. In 1925–27 he performed in Germany and US. On February 2, 1926 in New York City, Poddubny lost to world heavyweight wrestling champion Joe Stecher, which is considered Poddubny's first loss in 25 year-long career. On June 16, Stecher defeated Poddubny again at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles in front of 10,000 people.

During his tour in the United States he was forced to fight freestyle as his opponents. At age 56 Ivan won a male beauty contest in the United States. However, regulations prevented him from withdrawing his earnings when he left for home because he was not a U. S. citizen. Later, Ivan continued to perform in the Russian circuses retiring until his retirement at 70. His last farewell performance he did in the Tula city circus in 1941. After his retirement, he with his wife settled in Kuban buying a two-storey house with a garden in Yeysk.

In November 1939, he was given the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR, and in 1945 that of Honored Master of Sports.

And the last battle is held at the age of 70. After the end of his career, he moved to the Sea of Azov and lived until his death - 77 years. Poddubny maintained a lifelong professional rivalry with wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko. He died undefeated on 8 August 1949, in the town of Yeysk, in the Kuban region in Southern Russia from a heart attack. Ivan was buried in Yeysk in a park outside of the city. At his burial site was installed an obelisk that used to say "Here lies the Russian bogatyr".

Personal life
His first wife, Antonina, cheated on him and ran away with another man, stealing his gold medals. Antonina later regretted her actions and attempted to return, but Ivan would not forgive her.

Ivan had three sisters (Motrona, Maryna, and Yevdokiya) and three brothers (Omelyan, Mykyta, and Mytrofan). The fate of Omelyan and Mykyta is unknown, while Mytrofan continued to live in Krasenivka until he died in 1966. The last of Poddubny's relatives to live in Krasenivka was his granddaughter Hanna Zakharivna who died sometime before 2011. Motrona and Maryna had three children each, but Ivan felt closest to his youngest sister Yevdokiya and was the godfather of her daughter Mariya. Eventually, Yevdokiya moved to the neighboring village of Bohodukhivka and then to Zolotonosha.

According to the Krasenivka museum, Ivan Poddubny's height was 180 cm, his weight was 118 kg, his biceps girth was 44 cm, and his neck was 60 cm thick.

Among Poddubny's friends was Dmytro Yavornytsky who lived in Dnipropetrovsk (Yekaterinoslav).

Championships, accomplishments and awards

 * Six-time consecutive champion in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1905–1909, the first one to do so.
 * Legion of Honour (1911)
 * Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1939)
 * Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1939)
 * Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR (1945)

Legacy
There is a monument dedicated to Poddubny in his home village of Krasenivka. There is also the Ivan Piddubny Fund headed by Petro Dusheiko (former governor of Chornobai Raion). The Fund sponsors the annual festival of bogatyr strength which is conducted since 1998. The festival which gathers up to 10,000 people was visited once by a grandson and great grandson of Ivan Poddubny who arrived from Kazakhstan.


 * Piddubny Olympic College, a former Republican Higher School of Physical Culture (in Kyiv) renamed in 2015