Vinci, Charles T.

▪ American athlete

born February 28, 1933, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.

      American weightlifter who won two Olympic gold medals.

      Vinci, who stood just 4 feet 11 inches (1.5 metres) tall, won seven U.S. weightlifting titles in the bantamweight (56-kg [123.5-pound]) division in 1954–56 and 1958–61. He won Pan American Games titles in 1955 and 1959. At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, Vinci won the gold medal with a world-record three-lift (snatch, clean and jerk, overhead press) total of 342.5 kg (755.1 pounds). He won his second Olympic gold medal at Rome in 1960 and tied the world record with a 345-kg (760-pound) total. Sometimes dubbed “Mighty Mite,” Vinci held a total of seven world records.

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