Background
Chukarin was born on November 9, 1921 in Krasnoarmeyskoye village in Donetsk Oblast, but his family soon moved to Mariupol, where he started training in gymnastics.
Chukarin was born on November 9, 1921 in Krasnoarmeyskoye village in Donetsk Oblast, but his family soon moved to Mariupol, where he started training in gymnastics.
Later Chukarin studied at the Institute of Physical Education in Kiev, and in 1941 volunteered to the Soviet Army.
He was the most successful athlete at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He was wounded, taken prisoner of war near Poltava and sent to a prisoner camp in Sandbostel. He then went through a chain of prisoner camps and by the time when he was freed in 1945 weighed only 40 kg.
He was not accepted back to the sports institute in Kiev, and studied in a similar institution in Lviv.
Soviet Union joined the Olympic Games in 1952 when Chukarin was 30. By then Chukarin gained much weight and was considered bulky for a gymnast.
He led the Soviet team to the victory at the 1954 World Championships, winning gold in the team all around and the individual all around. He recounted his sport career in the 1955 book entitled The Road to the Peaks (Put K Vershinam).
In 1961, he coached Armenian gymnastics team, and in 1963 became an assistant professor at the Lviv Institute of Physical Culture.