Sergei Filatov

Sergei Ivanovich Filatov, born September 25, 1926, in Lysyye Gory, Tambov Governorate, and died April 3, 1997, in Moscow, was a Soviet dressage rider who competed at three Olympic Games, 1956, 1960 and 1964. His most notable accomplishment came at the 1960 Rome Olympics, where he won individual dressage gold, the first Olympic title of that rank ever won by a Soviet rider; he added two bronze medals at the 1964 Tokyo Games, in both individual and team dressage. He began serious competitive riding relatively late, starting training at age 27 while serving in the Soviet Army under Marshal Semyon Budyonny, won his first Soviet national title in 1954 after less than a year of training, and took seven consecutive national titles from 1957 to 1963, his results improving dramatically after he switched to an Akhal-Teke stallion named Absent in 1958. After retiring from competition he founded a riding school in Moscow.