Winner in Mexico 1968, Munich 1972 and Montreal 1976 also won Olympic silver in Moscow 1980 plus two European titles representing the Soviet Union

Triple jump great Viktor Saneyev, a three-time Olympic champion and former world record-holder, has died aged 76.

Born in Georgia in 1945, he competed for the USSR but has passed away in Australia, where he had spent his final years following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Saneyev began his athletics life as a high jumper but was persuaded to take up triple jump as a teenager. It proved a good move as he began to etch his name into athletics folklore by winning the first of three Olympic titles at the Mexico Games in 1968.

Everybody remembers Bob Beamon’s long jump world record at the Mexico Games. But the triple jump was also assisted by altitude and ideal wind conditions and saw several world records within the competition.

First Guiseppe Gentile of Italy set a world record of 17.10m in qualifying and improved it at the start of the final with 17.22m, but Saneyev took the lead in round three by taking the world record up to 17.23m.

Saneyev then lost the lead as Nelson Prudencio of Brail jumped 17.27m, but in the final round Saneyev regained the lead again with 17.39m to take gold in dramatic style.

“The contest produced distances that bordered on the unimaginable for that era thanks to the altitude and benign wind readings,” wrote AW’s Mel Watman, “but it will always be remembered for its sheer excitement.”

In Munich four years later Saneyev successfully defended his title in a close competition when his first-round effort of 17.35m – which was slightly wind-assisted – proved good enough to beat Jorg Drehmel by four centimetres.

Going into the Montreal Games in 1976 only two athletes had won three consecutive Olympic titles in the same individual event – hammer thrower John Flanagan and four-time discus champion Al Oerter. But with a jump of 17.29m in the fifth round Saneyev joined them by gaining a similar Olympic hat-trick.

In the quest to emulate Oerter as a four-time Olympic champion, Saneyev won silver in the Moscow Games in 1980 in a highly controversial competition won by Jaak Uudmae of Estonia.

Soviet officials inexplicably ruled out jumps by Joao Carlos de Oliveira of Brazil and Ian Campbell of Australia, with expert observers believing their marks were good enough to have won. The sandpit was also raked over before any official protests could be made, turning the competition into a farce.

Outside the Olympics, Saneyev won European titles in Athens in 1969 and Rome in 1974, plus six European indoor titles. He set a further world record of 17.44m in his home town of Sukhumi in Georgia in October 1972 as well and in total broke the 17-metre barrier 60 times.

Retiring after the Moscow Games and following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Saneyev moved to Australia with his wife Yana and son Alex. He nearly fell upon hard times after losing a coaching job and came close to selling his Olympic medals but he found work as a PE teacher and later as a jumps coach at the New South Wales Institute of Sport.