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Bernie Marcus

Bernie Marcus

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Third Day

Third Day

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A More Perfect Union

The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Cheryl Haworth

Cheryl Haworth

Cheryl Haworth trains in 2004 at the Anderson/Cohen Weightlifting Center in her hometown of Savannah. Haworth has won numerous awards, including a bronze Olympic medal in 2000, during her weightlifting career.

Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson, a heavyweight champion from Toccoa known as "the Dixie Derrick," lifts two beauty pageant contestants in the 1950s or 1960s. In 1955 Anderson became the first lifter to press more than 400 pounds.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
clq113.

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Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield, the only boxer to become the heavyweight champion of the world four times, trained for his second title fight at the Atlanta gym of Lee Haney, an eight-time Mr. Olympia.

Photograph by John Kloepper

Cheryl Haworth

Cheryl Haworth

Cheryl Haworth rests during a 2004 training session in Savannah. In 1998, at age fifteen, Haworth became the youngest lifter to hold senior American records.

Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson

Georgia-born Paul Anderson was an amateur weightlifter and professional strongman who gained widespread recognition in the 1950s and 1960s as the strongest man in the world. He became a national, world, and Olympic heavyweight champion, and a worldwide icon for strength and size.

Paul Anderson’s Home Gym

Paul Anderson’s Home Gym

The Russians called strongman Paul Anderson chudo prirody, "a wonder of nature," and Anderson quickly became a cold war symbol of America's massive strength and superiority.