Rauno Mäkinen
Rauno Mäkinen Leonard ( born January 22, 1931 in Pori, † 9 September 2010 in Vaajakoski, rural community of Jyväskylä ) was a Finnish wrestler.
Career
Rauno Mäkinen grew up in central Finland, Jyväskylä and began at a young age at the sports club " Työväen Painisema " with the rings. This club was a member of the Finnish Sports Federation TUL worker, who was widespread and still exists today. At 18, he joined the police and therefore moved to the Police sports clubs in Jyväskylä and Tampere. In youth or youth level, he won several Finnish Championships in his respective age and weight classes. As a senior he won in 1952, his first Finnish championship in freestyle wrestling the spring weight. He struggled at first in free style, but then switched to 1955 Greco-Roman wrestling on.
1952 also began his international career when he was employed at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in free style at featherweight. He won three fights, but dropped out after the fourth round because of a defeat to eventual Olympic champion Bayram Sit from Turkey from.
For Mäkinen a four-year break now entered in international championships. This was due to the fact that at that time the European Championships and World Championships were only performed alternately in the two styles. For this reason, found 1952-1956 in free style only in 1954 World Championships in Tokyo, where the Finnish Wrestling Federation for cost reasons could send only two wrestlers. Mäkinen was not there.
So he had to wait until the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956, until he was able to start in a "highlight" again. Mäkinen started it for the first time in the Greco-Roman style and made it for really a "highlight", because he was after hard fighting with Imre Polyák from Hungary and Roman Dsneladse from the Soviet Union, in which these three wrestlers defeated each other, Olympic champion.
Between 1956 and 1960, Mäkinen then started again with no international championships. Only in 1960, he qualified again for the Olympic Games in Rome. There, however, he had pronounced unlucky when he was injured in his second fight and had to retire.
Rauno Mäkinen was also several police - European featherweight champion.
International success
(OS = Olympic Games, F = Freestyle, GR = Greek and Roman. Styles, Fe = Featherweight, Le = lightweight )