BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : Possessing the Medal to Criticize : Weightlifting: Belarussian wins gold, then knocks Soviet legend Alexeev.

Comes the revolution, the world’s strongest man will clutch a bouquet of delicate white Catalonian flowers, say he is glad to win this medal for his Belarus republic, not Mother Russia--and knock the legendary mythological giant, Vassily Alexeev.

Comes the revolution, Alexander Kourlovitch can sit anywhere he wants and say anything he wants.

Weightlifting is maybe the world’s oldest contest. Undoubtedly it began when one early Homo sapiens lifting a rock bigger than another Homo sapiens could. The contest is what the Olympic creed identifies as fortius , stronger .

Running from the man with the biggest rock or jumping for the highest tree are identified as citius , faster, and altius , higher .

That’s how this man who wears the Size-60 coat and has thighs that make telephone poles look as if they were made by Eberhard Faber comes to have the audience of a gold-medal winner. He can lift 250 kilograms. That’s 551 pounds 2 ounces in a single lift, known as the clean and jerk.

The official tally says this Kourlovitch of the Commonwealth of Independent States cleaned 245 kilos to win the unlimited heavyweight championship. But he lifted 250. Time elapsed a moment before he huffed and puffed and grunted, raised that bar, sagging at both ends, let it thud to the floor. Then he lifted his chalked palms imploringly to the cold-hearted judges. It was up there.

Then this man who won the gold medal at Seoul for the old hammer and sickle and stood for the old “union unbreakable” anthem declared that there was nothing unified about this Unified Team.

“Of course the second medal is a lot sweeter,” he said through the translator. “Now I am doing my best for my own country (Belarus), not for the Soviet Union.”

It wasn’t a matter of political conflict, Kourlovitch said, but the fact that Alexeev was such a hard man to work for that even the defending champion feared he would be eliminated.

“There are people who behave like dictators,” Kourlovitch said. “Those who followed had normal relations with him. Those unwilling to toe the line were off the team.”

Unlimited lifters are, by definition, without limits in their own minds. That’s how they can lift so much.

But to criticize Alexeev, who won in 1972 and 1976 and was seen eating a breakfast of 26 fried eggs and a steak?

He was there as team leader at the platform when Kourlovitch stepped to the bar. He was there when Kourlovitch mounted the highest level of the victory stand, but lifter and leader did not exchange bearhugs.

“I am happy to part ways with him,” Kourlovitch said.

Weightlifting Medalists

SUPER HEAVYWEIGHT

GOLD: Alexander Kourlovitch (CIS)

SILVER: Leonid Taranenko (CIS)

BRONZE: Manfred Nerlinger (Germany)