Blacksmith, weightlifter.
Born at Winnipeg on 11 February 1923, one of three sons of Vera Gordienko (c1895-1982) and Feodor “Fred” Gordienko (1890-1978), brother of George Gordienko, he grew up in the city’s north end and, in 1938, started a weightlifting and bodybuilding club in his garage called the TNT Bar Bell Club. In 1940, after graduating from Isaac Newton High School, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served overseas. After the war, he returned to Winnipeg and worked as a sign painter for Skidmore Signs then, in 1950, went to work with his father at Manitoba Bridge and Engineering Works where he became a blacksmith. Over 37 years, he became a skilled metal craftsman, retiring in 1987. He was the Manitoba Amateur Heavyweight Wrestling champion (1946, 1949, 1952) and taught weightlifting at the YMHA on Hargrave Street in the early 1950s. He died at Winnipeg on 1 April 2005, survived by a wife and two children.
Obituary [Fred Gordienko], Winnipeg Free Press, 28 January 1978, page 245.
Obituary [Vera Gordienko], Winnipeg Free Press, 22 June 1982, page 41.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 2 April 2005.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 January 2022
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