Olympian Joe Dube Dies at 81

COLORADO SPRINGS – We're sorry to share that 1968 Olympic medalist Joseph Dube died Sept. 8, 2025 at age 81. Dube represented the United States at seven world championships and set six world records and twelve American records in his career. He was the last U.S. male athlete to claim gold in total at the world championships, having raised the crown in 1969.

Read The Joe Dube Story as prepared by Artie Dreschler

Further reading: Joe Dube, 1944-2025: Jacksonville's weightlifting world champion won Olympic medal

Joe Dube, born in Altha, Florida, won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1967 Pan American Games. At the 1968 Olympics when he was 24 years old, Dube took bronze after totaling 555.0 kg. While he lifted the same weight as Belgium’s Serge Reding, Dube was heavier and thus received the bronze medal. That medal helped extend the United States’ Olympic medal streak that ran from 1932-1968.

Dube followed the ‘68 Olympics with the 1969 World Championships in Warszawa, Poland, where he won super heavyweight gold after recording a 202.5 kg press, 162.5 kg snatch and 212.5 kg C&J for a 577.5 kg total to surpass Reding (570.0 kg) and the Soviet Union’s Stanslav Batishchev (570.0 kg). He and USAW Hall of Famer Bob Bednarski were the two Americans to finish atop the podium that year in the total (Russell Knipp earned press gold at 82.5 kg after lifting 162.5 kg). Dube’s resumé includes being the first teenager to press 400 pounds and the first American weightlifter to total 1,300 lbs. (591 kg) in the three-lift total. Dube’s 210 kg C&J was heaviest by an American at the Olympic Games until 1976 when Bruce Wilhelm lifted 215 kg.