Estonia’s first Olympic champion and holder of 12 world records, Alfred Neuland was born in Valga on October 10, 1895. Soon afterwards, the family moved to Riga, where the young Alfred took up weightlifting. By the age of 16, he was already winning major weightlifting competitions and breaking Russian records.
During the First World War, he served as a volunteer in a motor transport unit on the Caucasus Front.
After the war, Neuland moved to Valga to join his family, who had meanwhile returned there from Riga, and began working at a lemonade factory. He also took part in the Estonian War of Independence, serving on an armoured train and in an armoured car.
At the seventh Olympic Games in Antwerp in 1920, Alfred Neuland won the lightweight weightlifting event by a wide margin, becoming Estonia’s first Olympic champion. In 1922, in Tallinn, Neuland also became lightweight world champion. He competed again at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, where he won a silver medal. He ended his competitive sporting career the following year, in 1925.
In 1922, Alfred Neuland married Alvine Aleksandra Kalnin, and they had four sons, two of whom died at young age.
Alfred Neuland was successful not only in sport. In 1921, he established a business bearing his name in Valga, selling tobacco products, wine and other alcoholic beverages, as well as imported fruit. He also took an active part in community life as a member of the Estonian Defence League and a sports organiser and was elected to Valga City Council several times. Neuland was also well known for his hobbies. He played the violin well and owned a large collection of violins. He was also an accomplished angler, selling fishing equipment in his shop and giving customers advice on fishing. The Olympic champion also owned a Renault car and a motorcycle with a sidecar.
The Soviet occupation in 1940 brought major changes for Neuland and his family. His business and its assets were nationalised, and he had to find a new livelihood and a new job.
After the end of the Second World War, Alfred Neuland moved with his family to Tallinn and began working as the manager of a soft drinks factory. Alongside his work, he found time to contribute to the development of weightlifting. While living in Tallinn, he was invited to become a weightlifting coach for the Kalev sports society, where he remained until his retirement. Alfred Neuland also served as a judge and was a member of the presidium and coaches’ council of the Estonian SSR Weightlifting Federation. In 1964, he was awarded the honorary title of Merited Sports Figure.
Olympic champion and world champion Alfred Neuland died in Tallinn on November 16, 1966. He is buried in the sportspeople’s section of Metsakalmistu Cemetery in Tallinn.
On the centenary of Neuland’s birth, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the wall of his former home at 14 Kuperjanovi Street in Valga, and a bronze bust on a granite pedestal was unveiled in the green space at the junction of Kuperjanovi, Vabaduse and Kesk streets. In 2016, the street leading from his bronze bust towards the Pedeli River was named Alfred Neuland Street. To mark the 130th anniversary of Alfred Neuland’s birth, the oak tree he had planted at 20 Pärna puiestee, Valga, was marked with a commemorative plaque.
