Sergey Makarenko

Sports: rowing and canoeing.

Born: 11 September 1937, Ukraine.

Honors:

Merited Master of Sport of the USSR.

Honored trainer of the Republic of Belarus.

Honored Worker of Physical Culture and Sports.

Order of the Badge of Honour.

Career highlights:

The champion of the Games XVII Olympiad in 1960 (Rome) in rowing together with Leonid Geishtor (1000 m.).

World Champion in 1963 together with Leonid Geishtor.

European Champion 1961 and 1963 together with Leonid Geishtor.

USSR Champion 1959-1963 together with Leonid Geishtor.

Biography:

Sergey Makarenko was born on September 11, 1937 in Ukraine, but in 1940 the family moved to Brest. His father died at the beginning of the war, defending the Brest Fortress, so care for the family in the post-war period fell on the shoulders of Sergei’s mother. The future athlete had to start working early. In the mid-1950s, mother arranged for Sergey Makarenko to work as a sailor to a familiar skipper at the ore carrier. There, while working on the river Mukhovets, he first saw a canoe, which his future coach Vladimir Pilipenko brought to Brest. In 1955, Makarenko was already engaged in the rowing section and performed at his first competitions – at the Republican Championship among single boats. He showed the second result at a distance of 5000 m.

After serving in the army, just a few weeks before the start of the Games of the Peoples of the USSR, the coaches of the Belarusian national team decided to unite Sergey Makarenko and Leonid Geishtor, an athlete from Gomel, into one boat. The debut was successful – the athletes won first place in the 10,000 m race. In the 1960 year before the Games, athletes again became the first at the Games of the Peoples of the USSR 10,000 meters and second in the 1000 meter race, being 0.2 seconds behind their main competitors Pavel Kharin and Christian Botev. Despite taking only the second place in the Olympic race, a pair of Geishtor-Makarenko went to the Games XVII Olympiad in Rome in 1960.

The final canoe double ride started on August 29, 1960 at 4.20 pm on Lake Albano near Rome. Among the six duets that made their way to the final, the best was the Belarusian crew, who not only won the gold of the Olympic Games, but also brought the first award of such dignity to the treasury of the BSSR team.

Until 1963, the “golden” Olympic crew Sergey Makarenko and Leonid Geishtor was the strongest in the USSR, Europe and the world at distances of 1000 and 10,000 m. There are in the collection of the famous rower gold of the World Championship (1963), Europe (1961, 1963), and also eight victories in the championships of the USSR. After several not very successful performances at the competitions, the duo of Geishtor-Makarenko disintegrated. In 1966, Sergey Makarenko ended his sports career and joined the coaching position in the USSR national canoeing team, then became the senior coach of the Belarus national team. In addition, the Olympic champion managed to work as a coach in India, China and Iran.

Until 2018, Sergey Makarenko worked in the representative office of the National Olympic Committee of Belarus in Minsk and was engaged in the development of the Olympic movement in our country.


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