A two-time Olympic champion, he won his first gold medal for the United States in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He repeated as the Olympic bantamweight champion in the 1960 Rome Olympics, lifting 760 pounds to give the U.S. its only weightlifting medal in that competition. His 237-pound snatch at Rome equaled the word record. Although training only briefly between Olympics, he finished second in the 1958 world championships and was the Pan-American Games champion in 1959.