Passages: Robertas Zulpa, 1980 Olympic Gold Medalist, 64
Robertas Zulpa, the 1980 Olympic gold medalist in the men’s 200 breaststroke, died on Aug. 30. He was 64 years old.
Zulpa was born in Vilnius is what is now Lithuania but represented the Soviet Union. He won gold in the men’s 200 breast at the boycotted Moscow Olympics. His time was 2:15.85, slower than the winning time of Great Britain’s David Wilkie (2:15.11) from the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
Two years later, Zulpa won silver at the 1982 FINA World Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, behind eventual 1984 Olympic champ Victor Davis of Canada.
The USSR was absent from the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Instead, Zulpa went 2:15.70 to win gold at the 1984 Friendship Games in Moscow, over a field that included Los Angeles silver medalist Alban Vermes of Hungary, who took bronze. In LA, Davis lowered his world record to 2:13.34.
Zulpa also won three medals at the European Championships, including the 200 title in 1981 and bronze in the 200 in 1983. He won the 200 breast at the World University Games in 1983.
Zulpa retired in the 1980s and relocated to Italy in 1988, where he got work as a translator for corporations and coached swimming. He was living in Vilnius at the time of his death.
A sporting hero in Lithuania, Zulpa’s death was memorialized by condolences from the country’s president and head of its legislature. He was elected the country’s Sportsperson of the Year in 1981 and honored with the Honored Master of Sports of the USSR designation. Just this year, he was named the to the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas by the president’s office. He was an icon for many swimmers who would follow in his professional footsteps from the country.