Top perfect Olympic gymnasts
Gymnastics remains one of the most exciting events around the world. While the stakes have been raised with every passing year, the sport has witnessed a lot of transformation in the way athletes perform their routines based on the latest international rules. Read on to find out more about the top perfect Olympic gymnasts.
Gymnastics is a sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, flexibility, strength, agility, endurance, and coordination.
The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the improvement of the arms, shoulders, legs, chest, back, and abdominal muscle groups.
The word gymnastics concludes from the common Greek adjective γυμνός (gymnos), by way of the related verb γυμνάζω (gymnazo), whose meaning is to "train naked", "train in gymnastic exercise", usually "to train, to exercise".
The most usual form of competitive gymnastics is artistic gymnastics, which consists of, for women (WAG), the events floor, uneven bars, vault, and beam; and for men (MAG), the events floor, vault, pommel horse, parallel bars, rings, and horizontal bar.
The Federation of International Gymnastics (FIG) was established in 1881 in Liege. By the end of the nineteenth century, men's gymnastics competition was popular enough to be contained in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
The basic outline of having world-class gymnasts qualify and entertain the worldwide audience from the Olympic venue has remained intact to this day. On that note, let us now take a look at some of the greatest gymnasts ever to have graced the Olympic Games:
Top perfect Olympic gymnasts:
In the following article, we will talk about the
top perfect Olympic gymnasts
who have won most medals in the Olympics history.
Vitaly Scherbo
Full name: Vitaly Venediktovich Scherbo
Former countries: CIS (Olympic flag.svg Unified Team), Soviet Union
Date of birth: 13 January 1972 (age 49)
Place of birth: Minsk, Belorussian SSR, USSR, Belarus
Height: 169 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Vitaly Venediktovich Scherbo is a Belarusian former artistic gymnast who was born on 13 January 1972.
He is regarded as one of the most successful gymnasts of all time, he is the only male gymnast ever to have won a world title in all 8 events (individual all-Around in 1993, team in 1991, floor in 1994, 1995 and 1996, horizontal bar in 1994, parallel bars in 1993 and 1995, pommel horse in 1992, rings in 1992, vault in 1993 and 1994).
At the 1992 Summer Olympics he won 6 of 8 events – team all-around, and 4 of 6 event finals and became the most successful athlete at the games.
Vitaly Scherbo was inducted to gymnastics at age 7 by his mother. The coaches at his local club ordered him to be sent to a state boarding school for young athletes, where he continued to make progress as a gymnast.
In one of the most dominant performances in history, Vitaly Scherbo won six out of the possible eight awarded gold medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
Only Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz have ever won more gold medals in a single Olympic Games, and only Phelps and Eric Heiden have won as many single gold medals (five) at a single Olympic Games.
At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, his performances returned his lack of preparation time, because of both his wife's accident and to a recent shoulder operation.
Despite Vitaly Scherbo was obviously disappointed and frustrated at his failure to win gold medal, he was a decided crowd favorite, and they clearly noticed his four bronze medals as an impressive achievement after a stormy year.
With winning six Olympic gold medals and four bronze medals, Vitaly Scherbo is regarded as one of the
perfect gymnastics Olympians
.
Akinori Nakayama
Full name: Akinori Nakayama
Country represented: Japan
Date of birth: March 1, 1943 (age 78)
Place of birth: Nagoya, Japan
Height: 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Akinori Nakayama is a Japanese former gymnast who was born on 1 March 1943 in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. He's an Olympic gold medalist and is a graduate of Chukyo University in Nagoya.
Nakayama is one of only two gymnasts to become an Olympic gold medalist in rings twice, the first gymnast to do so being Albert Azaryan who achieved his medals in 1956 and 1960 Olympics.
Nakayama won six medals at the World Championships in 1966, including three gold medals in the team all-around, the horizontal bar and the floor exercise.
Two years later, Nakayama became the most successful male athlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics as he won four golds, one silver and one bronze medal.
In 1970, he managed to win another four world titles: in team competition, on rings, parallel bars and floor.
He won four more medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics including two gold medals in the team all-around and rings, a silver medal in the floor exercise and one bronze medal in the individual all-around.
Nakayama was the vice-president of the Japanese Gymnastics Federation after retirement and he also served as a gymnastics coach at his alma mater, Chukyo University. In 2005, he was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
With winning six gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals in Olympic Games, Nakayama is one of the perfect gymnasts ever and one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians.
Viktor Chukarin
Full name: Viktor Ivanovich Chukarin
Country represented: USSR
Date of birth: 9 November 1921
Place of birth: Krasnoarmeyskoye, Donets Governorate, Ukrainian SSR
Date of death: 25 August 1984 (aged 62)
Place of death: Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Viktor Ivanovich Chukarin was a Soviet gymnast who was born on 9 November 1921 and died in 1984 when he was 62.
Chukarin volunteered for the Red Army in 1941 with the start of the Great Patriotic War. He fought under the general Mikhail Kirponos.
Chukarin was wounded in battle, taken captive of war near Poltava (Kiev Cauldron) and sent to a prisoner camp in Sandbostel.
Chukarin then went through a chain of 17 prisoner camps and by the time when he was released in 1945 weighed only 40 kg.
He was not approved back to the sports institute in Kiev, and studied in a similar institution in Lviv.
In 1946 he already contested in gymnastics at the Soviet national championships; the following year he finished fifth, and in 1948 won a national trophy.
In 1949 Chukarin became the all-around Soviet champion and repeated this achievement in 1950, 1951, 1953 and 1955.
Soviet Union joined the 1952 Olympic Games when Chukarin was 30. Until that time he gained much weight and was considered bulky for a gymnast.
As a result, he got low points on the floor, yet he won six medals, including the individual all-around by a margin of 0.7 points; he became the most successful athlete at the 1952 Olympic Games.
Chukarin won five more Olympic medals at the 1956 Summer Olympics, including three gold medals at the individual all-around, team all-around and parallel bars.
He led his country team to the victory at the 1954 World Championships, winning gold in the team all- around and the individual all-around.
Chukarin along with Larisa Latynina, was awarded the first ever Order of Lenin given to an athlete in 1957.
He told his sport career in the 1955 book entitled The Road to the Peaks. In 1961, Chukarin coached Armenian gymnastics team, and became an assistant professor at the Lviv Institute of Physical Culture in 1963.
Chukarin won seven gold medals, three silver medals and a bronze medal in the Olympic Games and became one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians.
Věra Čáslavská
Full name: Věra Čáslavská
Country represented: Czechoslovakia
Date of birth: 3 May 1942
Place of birth: Prague, Czechoslovakia (occupied by Germany 1939–1945)
Date of death: 30 August 2016 (aged 74)
Place of death: Prague, Czech Republic
Height: 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in)
Weight: 58 kg (128 lb)
Discipline: Women's artistic gymnastics
Věra Čáslavská was a Czechoslovak artistic gymnast and Czech sports official. She is the most decorated Czech gymnast in history and along with Soviet Larisa Latynina; she is one of only two female gymnasts who have won the all-around gold medal at two consecutive Olympics.
Čáslavská won a total of 22 international titles from 1959 to 1968 including seven Olympic gold medals, four world titles and eleven European championships.
Her first international title came at the 1959 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships where she managed to win gold on the vault and silver on the balance beam.
Her first participation in the Olympics occurred in the 1960 Summer Olympic Games, where she won a silver medal with the Czechoslovak team.
From 1964 and 1968 Čáslavská dominated gymnastics competitions by winning 19 individual gold medals in major international tournaments.
At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo she was at her peak, winning the overall title and collecting gold medals in the balance beam and the vault, in addition to another silver medal in the team event.
Before the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, she lost her training facility because of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
She spent hard time but didn't quit, she used potato sacks as weights and logs as beams during training in the forests of Moravia.
Despite all problems Čáslavská was again dominant at the 1968 Summer Olympics, winning medals in all six events.
She managed to defend her all-around title and won additional gold medals on the floor, vault and uneven bars , as well as two silver medals, for the balance beam and team competition.
As of the day, Věra Čáslavská and Larisa Latynina are the only gymnasts to win the gold medal in individual all-around in consecutive Olympic Games as well as the only female gymnast to secure her gold medal in the vault tool.
She is regarded as one of the perfect gymnasts ever and with winning 11 Olympic medals which seven of them are golds, she's one of the
perfect gymnastics Olympians
.
In 2015, Čáslavská was recognized with pancreatic cancer. Her health condition became worse notably in the summer of 2016, to such an extent that she was taken to a hospital in Prague on 30 August, where she died at the age of 74.
Alexei Nemov
Full name: Alexei Yurievich Nemov
Country represented: Russia
Date of birth: 28 May 1976 (age 45)
Place of birth: Barashevo, Mordovian ASSR, Soviet Union
Hometown: Tolyatti
Height: 173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Alexei Yurievich Nemov is a former artistic gymnast from Russia who was born on 28 May 1976; he is one of the most celebrated gymnasts of all time and with 12 Olympic medals he's one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians.
Nemov grew up in Tolyatti on the Volga River. His father left him and his mother when Alexei was just a baby, and Nemov has never seen him since. Alexei started gymnastics at age five.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Nemov appeared poised to achieve the gold. Nemov won six medals (two gold medals, one silver and three bronzes).
He performed strongly in the all-around, battling World Champion Li Xiaoshuang every step of the way. Nemov destroyed his chances for gold, however, when he botched his middle tumbling run in the final contest, finishing second by a narrow difference.
Prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympics many questioned Nemov's devotion and fitness level due to several shoulder injuries, as well as his marriage and the birth of his first son.
However, as a high-performance gymnast, Nemov entered into the 2000 Olympics in the best form of his life – having never seen his newborn son, and was able to take home to his son what he called a golden rattle.
He managed to collect six medals at the 2000 Olympic Games; two gold medals, one silver medal and three bronze medals.
Besides for still rings, Nemov had won at least one Olympic medal in every other order of men's gymnastics by the end of the Sydney games.
Despite the fact that injury took its toll, Nemov contested through to the 2004 Athens Olympics, chiefly as an anchor for the inexperienced Russian team.
He finished his last Olympic Games without a medal and The Russian Olympic Committee later awarded him $40,000 for appreciating his services, and he retired from gymnastics soon after.
Sawao Katō
Full name: Sawao Katō
Country represented: Japan
Date of birth: October 11, 1946 (age 75)
Place of birth: Gosen, Niigata, Japan
Height: 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Weight: 59 kg (130 lb)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Sawao Katō is a Japanese former gymnast who was born on 11 October 1946, he's known as one of the perfect gymnasts ever and one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians.
His first participation at the Olympics came in the 1968 Olympic Games, where he competed alongside his elder brother Takeshi.
They won the team competition, with Sawao also taking gold medals on the floor and in the all-around; he also placed third in the rings event.
Four years later the Japanese men's gymnastics team dominated the 1972 Olympic Games, collecting 15 out of 21 individual medals. Katō won gold medals all-around and in the parallel bars and silvers on the pommel horse and horizontal bar.
He targeted for an unexampled third gold medal in the all-around at the 1976 Summer Olympics, but was defeated by Nikolai Andrianov.
The team competition was close this time, but the Japanese defeated the Soviets by four tenths of a point, collecting their fifth consecutive title. Katō closed out his Olympic career by securing his title in the parallel bars.
He is one of the most successful male gymnasts ever at the Olympics; Katō is one of only ten athletes to have won eight or more Olympic gold medals.
He won more Olympic gold medals than any Japanese Olympian, and is second behind Ono in the total number of Olympic medals.
Takashi Ono
Full name: Takashi Ono
Country represented: Japan
Date of birth: July 26, 1931 (age 90)
Place of birth: Noshiro, Akita, Japan
Height: 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in)
Weight: 58 kg (128 lb)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Takashi Ono is a former Japanese gymnast who was born on 26 July 1931. He participated in the 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games.
With collecting 13 Olympic medals he's one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians and he has won the most Olympic medals among Japanese Olympians.
In his first participation at the Olympic Games he won only a bronze medal in the vault at the 1952 Olympic Games.
Four years later at the 1956 Olympic Games he managed to collect five medals; a gold medal in the horizontal bar, three silver medals in the individual all-around, team all-around and pommel horse, he also won a bronze medal in parallel bars.
He was the flag bearer for Japan at the 1960 Olympics, where he won six medals and was one of the most successful athletes of the games.
Ono repeated his gold medal in vault and also won a gold medal in horizontal bar, in team competition he and his teammates defeated Soviets and won the gold medal of team all-around.
Takashi Ono also collected a silver medal in the individual all-around and two bronze medals; one in parallel bars and one in rings competition.
He participated in Olympic Games for the last time in 1964 Olympics, the games were hosted by Japan and Takashi Ono took the Olympic Oath.
Ono collected another gold medal alongside his teammates in the team all-around; this was his thirteenth and final Olympic medal. Takashi Ono was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1998.
Boris Shakhlin
Full name: Boris Anfiyanovich Shakhlin
Country represented: Soviet Union
Date of birth: 27 January 1932
Place of birth: Ishim, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Date of death: 30 May 2008 (aged 76)
Place of death: Kiev, Ukraine
Height: 1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight: 71 kg (157 lb)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Boris Anfiyanovich Shakhlin was a Soviet gymnast who was born on 27 January 1932. He's one of the perfect gymnasts ever and with collecting thirteen Olympic medals he's regarded as one of the perfect gymnastics Olympians.
At the 1960 Olympics he was the most successful athlete and Shakhlin also held the record for most Olympic medals by a male athlete record until gymnast Nikolai Andrianov surpassed his record at the 1980 Olympics.
The 1956 Olympic Games was his first tournament, where he achieved two gold medals: in team competition and pommel horse.
Four years later Shakhlin dominated the 1960 Olympics as he won seven medals and became the most successful athlete of the games.
He collected gold medals in: individual all-around, parallel bars, pommel horse and vault. He also won silver medals in team competition and the rings, and also a bronze medal in horizontal bar.
The 1964 games was his last Olympic; where he collected four medals, gold medal of horizontal bar, silver medals in team and individual all-around and also a bronze medal in rings.
He retired from competition at the age of 35 after suffering a heart attack and became a member of the FIG Men's Technical Committee in 1968 and continued to work on the Committee until 1992.
Shakhlin was awarded the Red Banner of Labor in 1956 and the Order of Lenin in 1960 and in 2002; he was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. He died on 30 May 2008 at the age of 76.
Nikolai Andrianov
Full name: Nikolai Yefimovich Andrianov
Country represented: Soviet Union
Date of birth: 14 October 1952
Place of birth: Vladimir, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Date of death: 21 March 2011 (aged 58)
Place of death: Vladimir, Russian Federation
Height: 166 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Weight: 60 kg (132 lb)
Discipline: Men's artistic gymnastics
Nikolai Yefimovich Andrianov was a Soviet gymnast who was born on 14 October 1952. He held the record for men for the most Olympic medals at 15 (7 gold medals, 5 silver medals, 3 bronze medals) until American swimmer, Michael Phelps, surpassed him at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Andrianov became the most successful athlete of the 1976 Olympics, where he won six individual medals and one team medal.
In the Men's Artistic Gymnastics, Andrianov also holds the men's record for most individual Olympic medals (12) and shares the male record for most individual Olympic gold medals in gymnastics (6) with Boris Shakhlin and Dmitry Bilozerchev.
His first international achievement came in the 1971 European Championships in Madrid, where he won two gold medals.
Andrianov's first Olympic title was gold medal in the 1972 floor competition, he collected silver medal in team competition and bronze medal in vault in that games either.
Andrianov dominated the 1976 gymnastics competition, collecting four golds, two silvers, and a bronze medal.
These medals included golds in the floor exercises, vault, and rings, as well as a highly valued gold in the 1976 all-around.
His record of four gymnastic gold medals at a single Olympic Games remained until Vitaly Scherbo won six other medals in 1992.
Nikolai Andrianov took the Olympic Oath for athletes at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. In the gymnastics competition, he won two more golds, two silvers, and a bronze medal.
His gold medals in that Olympic Games were in team competition and the vault, his silvers were in floor exercises and the all-around, and his bronze medal was in the horizontal bar. He retired soon after that Olympic Games.
Nikolai Andrianov was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2001. Between 1994 and 2002 he coached the Japan Olympic gymnastics team. Andrianov died on 21 March 2011 at the age of 58, due to illness.
Larisa Latynina
Full name: Larisa Semyonovna Latynina
Country represented: Soviet Union
Date of birth: 27 December 1934 (age 86)
Place of birth: Kherson, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Height: 161 cm (5 ft 3 in)
Weight: 52 kg (115 lb)
Discipline: Artistic gymnastics
Larisa Semyonovna Latynina is a former Soviet artistic gymnast who was born on 27 December 1934. Latynina won 14 individual Olympic medals and four team medals, between 1956 and 1964. She is the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history.
With 9 gold medals, Larisa Latynina holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals by a gymnast, male or female. Her total of 18 Olympic medals was a record for 48 years. She held the record for individual event medals with 14 for 52 years.
She made her Olympic debut at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, at the age of 21. She managed to finish first in the individual all-around and in the vault, second in the exercise on the floor and the uneven bars and also led her side to victory in the team all-around event.
Four years later in the 1960 Olympic Games, she secured her floor title and her individual all-around gold medal, took silver medals in the uneven bars and balance beam events, and bronze in the vault competition.
In the team all-around event, she led the Soviet Union to receive the first four places, thereby also defending a win in the team competition by a margin of nine points.
At the 1964 Olympics, she added six more medals to her tally, winning the gold medal in the team event and the floor event both for the third time in a row, silver medals in the vault and individual events and two bronzes in the uneven bars and balance beam events.
This brought her total of Olympic medals to eighteen—nine gold medals, five silver, and four bronze.
Latynina won a medal in every competition in which she competed, except for the 1956 balance beam where she came in fourth.
She is the only woman to have won nine gold medals and also the only female athlete who at some point has held the record for most Olympic gold medals.
In addition, in gymnastics, Latynina is the only woman who has won an all-around title in more than two Olympiads, the only woman who has won an individual event in more than two Olympiads.
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