Gymnastics at the 1968 Summer Olympics
Gymnastics at the Games of the XIX Olympiad | |
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Venue | National Auditorium |
Dates | 21 October – 26 October 1968 |
Gymnastics at the 1968 Summer Olympics | ||
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List of gymnasts | ||
Artistic | ||
Team all-around | men | women |
Individual all-around | men | women |
Vault | men | women |
Floor | men | women |
Pommel horse | men | |
Rings | men | |
Parallel bars | men | |
Horizontal bar | men | |
Uneven bars | women | |
Balance beam | women | |
At the 1968 Summer Olympics, fourteen different artistic gymnastics events were contested, eight for men and six for women. All events were held at the National Auditorium in Mexico City from October 21 through October 26.[1]
Format of competition
The scoring in all the events was similar to that of the gymnastics events at the 1960 Summer Olympics. The six best gymnasts on the apparatus in the team competition (by sum of two scores - for compulsory and optional routine) qualified for that apparatus finals. The new feature of the competition was in women's events: each of them was judged by four judges, like the men's competition. The highest and lowest marks were dropped and an average of two remaining marks constituted the score.
Results
Men's events
Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
---|---|---|---|
Individual all-around |
Sawao Kato Japan |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
Akinori Nakayama Japan |
Team all-around |
Japan (JPN) Yukio Endo Sawao Kato Takeshi Katō Eizo Kenmotsu Akinori Nakayama Mitsuo Tsukahara |
Soviet Union (URS) Sergei Diomidov Valery Iljinykh Valery Karasev Viktor Klimenko Victor Lisitsky Mikhail Voronin |
East Germany (GDR) Günter Beier Matthias Brehme Gerhard Dietrich Siegfried Fülle Klaus Köste Peter Weber |
Floor exercise |
Sawao Kato Japan |
Akinori Nakayama Japan |
Takeshi Katō Japan |
Horizontal bar |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
none awarded | Eizo Kenmotsu Japan |
Akinori Nakayama Japan | |||
Parallel bars |
Akinori Nakayama Japan |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
Viktor Klimenko Soviet Union |
Pommel horse |
Miroslav Cerar Yugoslavia |
Olli Laiho Finland |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
Rings |
Akinori Nakayama Japan |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
Sawao Kato Japan |
Vault |
Mikhail Voronin Soviet Union |
Yukio Endo Japan |
Sergei Diomidov Soviet Union |
Women's events
Medal table
Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Japan | 6 | 2 | 4 | 12 |
2 | Soviet Union | 5 | 5 | 8 | 18 |
3 | Czechoslovakia | 4 | 2 | 0 | 6 |
4 | Yugoslavia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
5 | East Germany | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
6 | Finland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Totals (6 entries) | 16 | 12 | 14 | 42 |
Controversy
Larisa Petrik's gold medal on floor was very controversial because originally, Čáslavská won outright. After the competition was concluded, Petrik's prelims scores were changed to let her tie with Čáslavská, an action which caused Čáslavská to publicly defy the Soviets who had recently invaded her home country. A similar controversy occurred in the balance beam, where Čáskavská was denied gold altogether.[2]
References
- "Gymnastics at the 1968 Mexico City Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
- "'I will sweat blood to defeat invaders' representatives' - 1968's forgotten Olympic protest". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2023-02-21.