Helmut Bellingrodt

Helmut Ernesto Bellingrodt Wolff ( * July 10, 1949 in Barranquilla ) is a Colombian sports shooter. He was the first and only two-time medal winner Colombia at the Olympics at all.

Family

Bellingrodt is the son of the entrepreneur Ernesto Antonio Bellingrodt from Barranquilla and those coming from Hamburg Anneliese Angela Wolff. He has three siblings Hans Peter, Helga María and Horst Federico.

Career

He made in 1959 on a shooting the police of Barranquilla His first experience. In the same year he also took part in the National Championships as a representative of his Department, Atlántico, in the youth vote in part. He cut very badly with the last place. His coach at the time was his father. In 1966 he was Colombian runner-up, while the title went to his brother Hans Peter Bellingrodt.

His first international appearance was in 1969 in the discipline of shooting at running target from 50 meters. As with his first national appearance he cut off badly here and reached the second to last place. The following year he was at the World Championships in Phoenix with the eighth most successful Latin Americans.

High phase

He recorded his greatest success at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where he won the first ever Colombian athlete a medal. With 565 points out of 600 possible downed slices at 60 he took silver and just had to admit defeat Yakov Schelesnjak.

His first gold medal he won in 1974 more or less unnoticed by the Colombian public at the World Championships in Thun. In his second at the Olympics in Montreal in 1976, he reached only the sixth place, but could not repeat his success in 1984 from Munich to Los Angeles and became a second time Olympic silver, this time behind the Chinese Li Yuwei. A year earlier he won also the gold medal at the Pan American Games 1983 in Caracas.

From 1995 on, he devoted himself to the discipline of Skeet, where he was repeatedly promoted to Senior Master at the Miami Cup.

Swell

Biographical page of the Comité Olímpico Colombiano