Larissa Semyonovna Latynina

Larissa Latynina
Latynina 1964
Personal information
Surname:	Larissa Semyonovna Latynina
Nationality:	Russia
discipline	Apparatus gymnastics
Birthday:	27th December 1934 (age 85)
Place of birth:	Kherson
Size:	161 cm
Medal table
Olympic games 9 × 5 × 4 × World championships 9 × 4 × 1 × European championships 7 × 6 × 1 ×
Medals
Olympic games gold Melbourne 1956 Individual all-around gold Melbourne 1956 ground gold Melbourne 1956 Horse jump gold Melbourne 1956 Team all-around silver Melbourne 1956 Ingots bronze Melbourne 1956 Group gymnastics gold Rome 1960 Individual all-around gold Rome 1960 ground gold Rome 1960 Team all-around silver Rome 1960 Ingots silver Rome 1960 Balance beam bronze Rome 1960 Horse jump gold Tokyo 1964 ground gold Tokyo 1964 Team all-around silver Tokyo 1964 Individual all-around silver Tokyo 1964 Horse jump bronze Tokyo 1964 Ingots bronze Tokyo 1964 Balance beam  World championships gold Rome 1954 Team all-around gold Moscow 1958 Individual all-around gold Moscow 1958 Horse jump gold Moscow 1958 Ingots gold Moscow 1958 bar gold Moscow 1958 Team all-around silver Moscow 1958 ground gold Prague 1962 Individual all-around gold Prague 1962 ground gold Prague 1962 Team all-around silver Prague 1962 Horse jump silver Prague 1962 bar bronze Prague 1962 Ingots silver Dortmund 1966 Team all-around  European championships gold Bucharest 1957 Individual all-around gold Bucharest 1957 Horse jump gold Bucharest 1957 Ingots gold Bucharest 1957 bar gold Bucharest 1957 ground gold Leipzig 1961 Individual all-around gold Leipzig 1961 ground silver Leipzig 1961 Ingots silver Leipzig 1961 bar silver Sofia 1965 Individual all-around silver Sofia 1965 Ingots silver Sofia 1965 bar silver Sofia 1965 ground bronze Sofia 1965 Horse jump

Larissa Semjonowna Latynina ( Russian Лариса Семёновна Латынина , scientific transliteration Larisa Semënovna Latynina ; born December 27, 1934 in Cherson , Ukrainian SSR ) is a former Soviet gymnast . With 18 medals won at the Summer Olympics (1956–1964), including nine gold medals, she is the most frequently decorated Olympian to date and the second most awarded person at all. In addition, she was nine times world champion and seven times European champion and after her active career she worked successfully as head coach for the Soviet gymnastics team.

Life

Training and successful Olympic debut

Larissa Latynina was born as Larissa Dirij and grew up in difficult circumstances in her native city of Cherson ( “I got to know a great truthfulness in my difficult childhood” ). Her father did not return from World War II , while the mother made a living as a cleaning lady. Born in Ukraine, Dirij began taking ballet lessons from the age of eleven and counted Maja Plissezkaja among her role models. After her ballet teacher moved away, she switched to gymnastics at the suggestion of the gymnastics teacher Mikhail Sotnitschenko. This discovered her talent and recommended her to the Kiev top coach Alexander Mishakov. Under Mishakov, the meanwhile married Latynina developed into an internationally competitive gymnast. After her debut at the World Gymnastics Championships in Rome in 1954 , where the 19-year-old still had to pay hardship and did not get past 14th place in the individual competition, but won gold as a member of the Soviet women's team, she won two years later at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, four Olympic victories. In the eightfight at that time , in floor exercise , horse jumping and with the Soviet team, she won gold as well as another silver and bronze medal. This made her one of the most successful athletes of the Games, just behind the Hungarian Ágnes Keleti . A year later, Latynina was awarded the Order of Lenin and won all five titles to be awarded at the first ever European Women's Gymnastics Championships in Bucharest .

Latynina was able to build on previous successes at the World Gymnastics Championships in Moscow in 1958 . Although she had to admit defeat on the floor of the Czechoslovak Eva Bosáková , but won all other competitions held. The gymnast was four months pregnant at the time, but said she had kept this a secret from her coach Mishakov in order to be able to compete. Due to the birth of her first child, Latynina was absent from the 1959 European Championships in Krakow , but was able to repeat her Olympic victories in the all-around, on the ground and with the team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and won three more medals.

Rise to the most highly decorated Olympian

In the following years too, Latynina dominated artistic gymnastics. “It was just my determination and my will to win. I had that competitive gene in me. I never wanted to lose, I hated that, ” said Latynina looking back in 2012. At the 1961 European Gymnastics Championships in Leipzig , she won gold in the all-around and on the floor as well as silver on the balance beam and on the uneven bars . At the Gymnastics World Championships in Prague in 1962 , she won medals in all competitions, including gold in the all-around competition, on the ground and with the team. The floor exercise was Latynina's favorite discipline and, according to her own statements, fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a prima ballerina , albeit modified . At the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo in 1964 , the Soviet gymnast stood in the shadow of the Czechoslovak Věra Čáslavská , by whom she was defeated in the all-around, horse jump and on the balance beam. Nevertheless, Latynina won gold for the third time after 1956 and 1960 in the Olympic floor exercise and in the team competition as well as two silver and bronze medals each on the other devices. In total, she won 18 medals, including nine gold medals, at three Olympic Games. Thus Latynina was for decades the most decorated Olympian , before 2008 , the US swimmer Michael Phelps more Olympic medals achieved could. Her medal record was broken by four plaques by Phelps at the 2012 Olympics . Latynina said that she was granting Phelps the record, which she had already congratulated by letter in 2008 after his successes in Beijing. “I take it easy. The record has existed for 48 years. It was about time it was broken, ” Latynina told Russian reporters on the sidelines of the 2012 Games.

Resignation and work as a trainer

Latynina in 2000

After the games in Tokyo, Latynina went to gymnastics for two more years. At the European Gymnastics Championships in 1965 , she was again in the shadow of Věra Čáslavská. She won four silver medals and one bronze medal and was the first time without a title. After winning silver with the Soviet women's team at the 1966 World Cup in Dortmund , behind the team from Czechoslovakia, the 32-year-old Latynina ended her career as an artistic gymnast in November of the same year and devoted herself to family life. A daughter (* 1958) and a son (* 1961) were born from the marriage with the shipbuilding engineer Latynin. Two other Latynina marriages broke up. Her daughter Tatjana later trained as a ballet dancer. In 1960, 1965 and 1972 Larissa Latynina was awarded the Badge of Honor of the Soviet Union .

Latynina, who studied at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Kiev , remained connected to artistic gymnastics as a judge, trainer and organizer. In 1968 the trainer acted as a referee on the balance beam and uneven bars at the Olympic Games. From 1974 to 1982 Latynina was the Soviet national coach. Her protégés won ten gold medals at the Olympic Summer Games in 1968 , 1972 and 1976 . At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, she took care of the gymnastics competitions as a member of the organizing committee.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, Latynina went to Japan as a trainer , later she worked for the Moscow Sports Committee and volunteered to run the Golden Seagull gymnastics school in Obninsk , near Moscow. In 2012 the pensioner, who lives outside Moscow, attended the Summer Olympics in London as a guest of the FIG International Gymnastics Federation .

Olympic successes

1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne :

• Gold in the eight fight
• Gold in the team competition
• Gold in the horse jump
• Gold in floor exercise
• Silver on the uneven bars
• Bronze in group gymnastics

1960 Summer Olympics in Rome:

• Gold in the eight fight
• Gold in the team competition
• Gold in floor exercise
• Silver on the uneven bars
• Silver on the balance beam
• Bronze in the horse jump

1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo :

• Gold in the team competition
• Gold in floor exercise
• Silver in the eight fight
• Silver in the horse jump
• Bronze on the uneven bars
• Bronze on the balance beam

Honors

• Badge of Honor of the Soviet Union (1960, 1965, 1972)
• Olympic Order (1989)
• Induction into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (1998)

Web links

Commons : Larissa Latynina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Larissa Latynina in the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (English)
• Larissa Latynina in the database of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (English)
• Larissa Latynina in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Larysa Latynina at edition.cnn.com, July 7, 2008 (accessed August 7, 2012).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} On the floor Larissa was indulging in her dream . In: Kluge, Volker : 100 Olympic Highlights: Snapshots; Athens 1896 – Atlanta 1996 . Berlin: Verlag Sport und Gesundheit, 1996. - ISBN 3-328-00678-8 , p. 83.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Larissa Latynina . In: Internationales Sportarchiv 39/1994 from September 19, 1994 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Gymnastics legend Latynina trusts Phelps' medal record at diepresse.com, July 24, 2012 (accessed on August 5, 2012).
5. ↑ Olympia - London: Latynina congratulates the new record holder Phelps ( memento from August 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at newsticker.sueddeutsche.de, August 1, 2012 (accessed on August 5, 2012).
6. ↑ Larissa Latynina as a judge . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 7, 1968, p. 11.
7. ^ The large Olympia Lexicon , Sport-Bild from June 19, 1996, p. 42.
8. ↑ Gymnastics: Most successful female Olympian of all time, visited Berlin gymnastics talents