Lev Weinstein: Olympic Champion

Gil Hebards Pistol Shooter's Treasury is a great book on pistol shooting (it must be a great book because I loaned out my copy and never got it back...), and is divided into separate chapters by different authors. One of the chapters is by Lev Weinstein, a former USSR shooting coach, and I wondered if he was Jewish based on his name. A while back, my blog was discovered by a blogger in Germany, who has some knowledge of competitive shooters in the former Soviet Union, and has already written about a few of them. The following is an excerpt on Weinstein from his blog, translated by Google, as my German is a bit rusty:

He was born on 03/12/1916 in Yekaterinburg born. Like most of his peers, he was in the war years a member of the Red Army and remained so even after the end of World War II, but then as athletes. Most recently, he wore the rank of Major aD (the accompanying picture shows him in officer's uniform). As his surname suggests, he was a Jew. Still, he seems to have somehow managed in the late Stalin onset persecution of Jews, in which many Jewish lost their positions to Soviet citizens survive time.

Weinstein at the 1952 Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki in the truest sense of the word for "Shooting Star" of the shooting scene with the fifth free pistol at 50 meters and third parties with the gun outside to 300 m. This bronze medal he won as a total outsider, he was above all an ambitious handguns shot. This shows that one in fields can provide excellent results both well. Maybe he was just an exceptional shooter. ;-) He also has several world and European titles won and held five world records, two European records and 32 Soviet records.

Later, Weinstein has a trainer in the Central Army Sports Club (P / CSKA) worked and Moscow, where many trained. Handgun shooters in 1962 he was honorary title of "Honored coach of the Soviet Union" award. the Previously he had been the shooting sports departments (Army) sports club "Dynamo "in Tbilisi (1946-1950), Leningrad (1950-1953) and Moscow (1953-1955) belongs to.

He was still active into old age, his last book came out in 1998. On 12.25.2004 is Lew Weinstein, the 89th Years standing, died. To this day remember his students appreciate him.

In 1956 , he has little textbook for handguns written a shooter, in which he sums up his experiences and tips are many. Because of Weinstein's work has won international recognition also found. Since there are two German states were at that time, this book was published twice in German. First, in East Germany, entitled "Sport shooting with pistols and revolvers" (Berlin 1960) and the other in Germany as "Sporty shooting with handguns" (edited by the German Shooting Federation).

I have not been able to find much else out about Weinstein via Google. Once again danke to Ernst!