Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #21 - Boris Shakhlin

Boris Shakhlin

USSR

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#5 among Gymnasts

#3 among Male Gymnasts

#3 among Soviet Olympians

#2 among Male Soviet Olympians

Olympic Results

1956

Team - Gold

Pommel Horse - Gold

1960

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Silver

Vault - Gold

Parallel Bars - Gold

Horizontal Bar - Bronze

Rings - Silver

Pommel Horse - Gold

1964

Individual All-Around - Silver

Team - Silver

Horizontal Bar - Gold

Rings - Bronze

Total

Events - 24

Gold - 7

Silver - 4

Bronze - 2

Boris Anfiyanovich Shakhlin was born on January 27, 1932 in Ishim, USSR, which is now part of Russia, but he was ethnically Ukrainian. He began training in gymnastics at age 12, and competed in his first world championships at age 22, winning team gold and a silver on the horizontal bar. He remained as part of the Soviet team for the remainder of his gymnastics career, and his first Olympics came in 1956 in Melbourne.

In the team competition, the Soviets were the defending champs, but the Japanese were improving rapidly, and they made this a tough competition. Shakhlin was the 5th-highest scoring member of the Soviet team, as one of the newcomers, but Viktor Chukarin and Yury Titov led them to another gold medal, ahead of Japan by 1.85 points.

The results from the team event decided the individual all-around medals as well, and in that event, Shakhlin finished tied for 8th place. The medals for the individual events were also determined this way. He nearly earned a medal in the vault, where he finished tied for 4th, just 0.05 points behind Titov for the bronze. He did, however, win the gold medal in the pommel horse, where his combined score of 19.25 put him 0.05 ahead of Takashi Ono for first place.

By the time the 1958 World Championships came around, he was the best gymnast in the world, and he proved it by winning 5 gold medals, including the individual all-around. He carried that momentum into the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where his own teammates and the Japanese gymnasts would be his chief competition.

1960 was the year that the Japanese gymnastics dynasty began. They were finally able to overcome the USSR, winning the gold medal by 2.5 points, leaving a team silver for the Soviets. In the individual all-around scoring, however, Shakhlin came out on top, 0.05 points ahead of Ono, giving him the toughest gold medal to earn in gymnastics.

That year is when the event finals were a separate event, with a final performance score combined with the qualifying score to determine the medals. The top 6 on each apparatus advanced to the final, and Shakhlin qualified in 5 of the 6, failing only in the floor exercise, where he finished 7th.

In the vault, he had qualified in third place, but in the final, he posted the best score, a 9.75, which raised him into a tie for first with Ono, and the pair shared the gold medal. He and Ono tied for first in qualifying for the parallel bars, but he again outperformed Ono in the final, and earned a solo gold medal as a result.

He was tied for second in qualifying for the horizontal bar, but slipped back to third after the final, ending up with the bronze medal. On the rings, he qualified #2, but teammate Albert Azaryan had an insurmountable lead, and he was content to finish with the silver. In the pommel horse, he started out in first, and held it in the final, earning him a repeat gold in the event.

He won 7 total medals in the 1960 Olympics, which at the time was tied for the most ever in a single Olympics, since surpassed by Aleksandr Dityatin and Michael Phelps. By 1962, he was still great, but had slipped slightly, winning 4 silvers and 2 bronzes at the World Championships, but no golds. 

At the 1964 Olympics, he was still the top athlete on the Soviet team, but they were defeated again by the Japanese team, by an identical 2.5 point margin. He also finished in second place in the individual all-around, but wasn't all that close to the gold, as Yukio Endo beat him by 0.55 points. He qualified for the finals in just 3 of the individual events.

He was #4 in qualifying for the vault, but had a disappointing 9.525 in the final, and he ended up in 5th place. He was the top qualifier in the horizontal bar, which was his favorite event, and he posted the best score in the final as well, so he was finally able to earn his first Olympic gold in the event. In the rings, he qualified in 4th place, but a poor showing from Endo, along with a solid 9.7 from Shakhlin, enabled him to move up to 3rd and take the bronze medal.

He continued to compete after those Olympics, but earned only a single medal, the team silver, at the next World Championships. He was still planning to compete in the 1968 Olympics, but after suffering a heart attack in 1967, he decided to retire from competition. After retirement, he lived in Kyiv for most of the rest of his life, before he passed away in 2008.

At the time of his retirement, he had the record for most total Olympic medals by a man, with 13, and most individual gold medals by a male gymnast, with 6, a record he still holds. His performance at the 1960 Olympics was one of the greatest ever, with 7 total medals and 4 golds, and there is no doubt that he is one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #26 - Takashi Ono

Takashi Ono

Japan

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#7 among Gymnasts

#5 among Male Gymnasts

#3 among Japanese Olympians

Olympic Results

1952

Vault - Bronze

1956

Individual All-Around - Silver

Team - Silver

Parallel Bars - Bronze

Horizontal Bar - Gold

Pommel Horse - Silver

1960

Individual All-Around - Silver

Team - Gold

Vault - Gold

Parallel Bars - Bronze

Horizontal Bar - Gold

Rings - Bronze

1964

Team - Gold

Total

Events - 32

Gold - 5

Silver - 4

Bronze - 4

Takashi Ono was born on July 26, 1931 in Noshiro, Japan, and was an only child who was taught gymnastics at a young age, and he ended up having one of the longest careers of any male gymnast ever. His first international competition came at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.

The Japanese team had not yet established themselves as a world power in gymnastics at the time, and in those Olympics, they came in 5th in the team competition, with the Soviets taking the gold in their first Olympics as a nation. Japan came in more than 7 points behind Finland, who had won the bronze medal.

Back then, the medals in all of the individual events were determined by the scores in the team event. Ono came in 12th in the all-around that year, and was the top scorer for the Japanese team, 2.55 points away from the medals. His best two individual events were the floor exercise, where he finished 4th, 0.1 away from a medal, and vault, where he tied for the bronze medal with Tadao Uesako, his teammate. He was far from the medals in the other 4 events.

By 1956, the Japanese had built up a much stronger team, and they put up a good challenge against the USSR in the team competition, finishing only 1.85 points behind as they won the silver medal. His scores in that competition were good enough for 2nd place in the individual all-around, just 0.05 points behind Viktor Chukarin (#83), who took the gold.

He also won 3 individual event medals that year, with a bronze medal in the parallel bars, 0.1 points behind Chukarin, and a silver medal in the pommel horse, where he was 0.1 ahead of Chukarin, but came in behind Boris Shakhlin of the USSR. He won the gold medal in the horizontal bar, finishing 0.2 points ahead of anyone else, to earn his first Olympic gold, and the first ever for a Japanese gymnast.

He was nearly as good at the 1958 World Championships, winning 4 silver medals and a bronze, but he was still getting better, and he would show his full potential in Rome in 1960. That year, he finally led Japan to a gold medal in the team event, as they upset the Soviets by 2.5 points, a result that started decades of Japanese dominance in mens gymnastics.

He once again came up just short of the individual all-around gold, however, again finishing 0.05 points behind a Soviet gymnast, this time Shakhlin. That year, the individual events had a separate final round whose score was averaged with the athlete's qualifying score from the team event, with the top 6 on each apparatus competing in the final, and Ono qualified for all 6 finals.

He was tied for 4th in qualifying for the floor exercise, and remained in that spot after the final performance. In the vault, he was the top qualifier, but in the final, Shakhlin had a slightly better score, and the result was a tie between the two, with each being awarded a gold medal. He was also the top qualifier in the parallel bars, but was outperformed in the final by two others, dropping down to the bronze medal.

He was the defending champ in the horizontal bar, and had the top qualifying score as well, and he followed that up by posting the highest final score as well, giving him a repeat gold medal, the third that he earned in Rome. He qualified in third for the rings, and was able to maintain that spot for another bronze medal. He was #4 going into the pommel horse final, but scored only an 8.95 in that round to fall to 6th place.

In 1962, he won his first and only individual World Championship gold medal, in his specialty, the horizontal bar. The Olympics came to Tokyo in 1964, and even though his skills were diminishing, he was chosen as team captain for the home team, and also recited the Olympic Oath at the opening ceremonies.

The Japanese repeated as gold medalists in the team event that year, earning Ono his 5th career gold medal, and 13 medal overall, which is still a record for any Japanese Olympian. He was the lowest-scoring member of the 6-man Japanese team, but that was still good enough for 11th place in the all-around.

He only qualified for one event final this time, in the horizontal bar, and he was in 3rd place after qualifying, but only scored a 9.3 in the final, finishing in 6th place. He retired soon afterward and began raising a family with his wife, Kiyoko, who had an Olympic bronze medal of her own in gymnastics. He won 2 silver medals in the individual all-around, coming up just short of gold both times, but won 8 other individual medals, and was the best gymnast on the team that started the Japanese dynasty, all of which makes him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #41 - Vera Caslavska

Vera Caslavska

Czechoslovakia

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#9 among Gymnasts

#3 among Female Gymnasts

#1 among Czechoslovakian Olympians

Olympic Results

1960

Team - Silver

1964

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Silver

Vault - Gold

Balance Beam - Gold

1968

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Silver

Floor Exercise - Gold

Vault - Gold

Uneven Bars - Gold

Balance Beam - Silver

Total

Events - 18

Gold - 7

Silver - 4

Vera Caslavska was born on May 3, 1942 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which at the time was part of Nazi-controlled Bohemia and Moravia. She began figure skating at an early age, but switched to gymnastics as a teenager, making her international debut in 1958 at the world championships, where she won a team silver medal.

She was again part of the team for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, where the competition started with the team event. The Soviets had won the past two team golds, and they were able to continue that streak, beating the Czechoslovakians by 9 points, but it earned Caslavska her first Olympic medal, a silver. 

The individual all-around event was decided based on the individual scores in the team event, and Caslavska was her country's highest scorer, finishing 8th overall in her Olympic debut at 18 years old. She qualified for just one event final, the balance beam, where she was the 6th qualifier, and didn't improve on her position in the final.

In the 1962 World Championships, she took the all-around silver, along with a gold in the vault and a bronze in the floor exercise, and she was definitely ascending. When she returned to the Olympics in Tokyo, she very nearly led her team to an upset of the Soviets for the gold medal, but they ended up less than a point behind in the end, taking another silver.

The individual all-around was again determined by scores in the team event, and this time, Caslavska came out on top, beating Larisa Latynina of the USSR, the two-time defending champion, by 0.566 points to take the gold medal. She also qualified for all 4 of the event finals.

She was the #3 qualifier in the floor exercise, but she had a poor routine in the final, scoring only 9.466, and she ended up falling to sixth place. She was the top qualifier in the vault, and was also the defending world champion, and she had the highest score in the final round to win the gold by 0.2 points, a significant margin in gymnastics.

She was the top qualifier in the uneven bars as well, but scored only an 8.7 in the final, which dropped her to 5th place and outside the medals. She was also the top qualifier in the balance beam, and she again had the highest score in the final, which earned her her third gold medal of the 1964 Games, to go along with the team silver.

In the 1966 World Championships, she won the vault title again, but also managed to win the individual all-around and the team gold, a huge upset in an era of Soviet dominance. Just prior to the 1968 Olympics, the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia, and she was forced into hiding due to her vocal opposition to the occupation, but she did manage to get permission to go to Mexico City for the Olympics.

At those Olympics, she once again attempted to break the Soviet stranglehold on the team event, but they again fell short, this time by only 0.65 points, but the result was the same, a third straight team Olympic silver. The individual all-around was still scored the same way, and Caslavska won in a blowout, 1.4 points ahead of anyone else, which was the largest win in this event until 2016, after the scoring system had been changed.

She again qualified for all 4 event finals. She was the #2 qualifier in the floor exercise, and after posting a 9.9 in the final, she won the gold medal. However, after she had won the event, the judges decided to adjust the qualifying round score of Larisa Petrik of the USSR, which gave her enough points to tie for the gold medal. She turned her head down and to the side during the Soviet national anthem, in protest of both the unfair scoring change and the occupation of her country.

The vault had always been her best event, and she showed it again in Mexico City, qualifying in first place, the posting a 9.9 in the final to take the gold medal by 0.15 points. She did the exact same thing in the uneven bars final, coming in as the top qualifier, scoring a 9.9 in the final, and winning the event by 0.15 points.

In the balance beam, she was unable to defend her gold medal, as she was #2 in qualifying, but matched the score of the Soviet gymnast ahead of her in the final, meaning that she was unable to make up the gap and ended up with the silver medal. It was the only individual event she didn't win in Mexico City, and she repeated her protest during the Soviet national anthem afterward.

After the Olympics, her government told her to withdraw her opposition to the Soviet occupation, but she refused, and was therefore banned from leaving the country, which forced her into retirement at her athletic peak. She spent the next 20 years as an outcast, before Soviet rule was finally overthrown in 1989, and she was finally recognized as a hero.

She was the second woman in history to win the individual all-around gold medal twice, after Latynina, a feat that has since been matched by Simone Biles. She won medals in all 6 events in the 1968 Olympics, all gold or silver, and led her team to three straight silver team medals, each time inching closer to winning. Who knows how much more she could have achieved if she had been allowed, but she accomplished more than enough in the time she had to prove herself as one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #45 - Don Schollander

Don Schollander

USA

Swimming

Overall Ranks

#14 among American Olympians

#10 among Male American Olympians

#5 among Swimmers

#4 among Male Swimmers

Olympic Results

1964

100m Freestyle - Gold

400m Freestyle - Gold

4x100m Freestyle Relay - Gold

4x200m Freestyle Relay - Gold

1968

200m Freestyle - Silver

4x100m Freestyle Relay - Gold*

4x200m Freestyle Relay - Gold

4x100m Medley Relay - Gold*

Total

Events - 8

Gold - 7*

Silver - 1

*Medals weren't awarded to swimmers who only competed in heats of relays at the time

Donald Arthur Schollander was born on April 30, 1946 in Charlotte, North Carolina, where his uncle taught him to swim, before the family moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon. He originally wanted to play football, but was too small to make the team, so he joined the swim team instead, winning the state championship as a freshman.

When he was 18, he qualified for the American Olympic team in 4 events. His first event was the 100m Freestyle, and he was considered one of the favorites despite his age. He won both of his heats to advance to the final, where fellow American Mike Austin led at the midway point. Schollander took the lead right after the turn, then gave himself a solid lead before he was nearly caught by Bobby McGregor of Great Britain at the end. Schollander still ended up winning by 0.1 seconds, and his time was also a new Olympic record.

His next event was the 4x100m freestyle relay, which was being contested for the first time in the Olympics, and the Americans were big favorites. Steve Clark started them out by tying the world record on the first leg, and by the time Schollander jumped in on the anchor leg, their lead was 4.6 seconds, and Schollander only needed to swim a decent time to win, which he did, while the team set a new world record in the event.

Up next was the 400m, where he had recently broken the world record, so he was again favored to win. He actually trailed by 0.1 seconds after the first 100m, but pulled ahead slightly by the halfway point. He was still slightly ahead at the 300m mark, but then he turned on the jets, and by the end of the race, he had won by 2.7 seconds, and set another world record.

His final event was the 4x200m freestyle relay, where there was no doubt that the Americans would win. They were ahead by a full second after the first leg, then 3.5 seconds at the midway point. The lead was nearly 5 seconds before Schollander entered the pool on the anchor leg, and he extended the lead to 7.2 seconds by the end, destroying the old world record. Previously, no team had ever beaten 8 minutes in the event, but the Americans new record was 7:52.1. Schollander also became the first swimmer ever to win 4 golds in the same Olympics.

He wasn't able to train quite as much in the ensuing years, as he came down with mononucleosis, and later the Asian flu, which sapped his energy somewhat. He still made the Olympic team for 1968, where he would again compete in 4 events. His first was the 4x100m freestyle relay, where he swam anchor in the heats, giving America the best time of the round, before being replaced in the final, where America won easily. At the time, you weren't awarded a medal if you only competed in the heats, so he wasn't given a gold medal, but under today's rules, it would have been his 5th gold medal.

Next was the 4x200m freestyle relay, he was chosen to swim the anchor leg in the final. They were slightly behind East Germany after the first leg, but had pulled far ahead at the midway point. Mark Spitz kept the lead at 1.7 seconds before giving it to Schollander, who also kept the lead, giving America the gold by 1.4 seconds.

His next event was the 200m freestyle, which was his best event, but had not been contested in the Olympics before. He had set the world record 9 times over the past few years, most recently at the Olympic trials, so he was expected to win easily. Mike Wenden of Australia took a lead of 0.7 seconds in the first half of the race, then Schollander closed the gap somewhat during the next section, but Wenden closed it out down the stretch, upsetting Schollander by 0.6 seconds and setting a new Olympic record, while Schollander won his first-ever silver.

His final event was the 4x100m medley relay, where he again swam only in the initial heat. He swam the anchor leg, and the Americans had the best time, and then they went on to win gold by more than 2 seconds in the final leg with a different team of swimmers, meaning Schollander wasn't awarded a gold because of the old rules.

He retired after the 1968 Olympics, having already been inducted into the Hall of Fame 3 years earlier. He later wrote a couple of books about swimming, and eventually started a real estate development company. In his Olympic career, he swam in 8 events, and was only beaten once. Being the first swimmer to win 4 golds was huge, and helped make him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #61 - Yukio Endo

Yukio Endo

Japan

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#14 among Gymnasts

#8 among Male Gymnasts

#6 among Japanese Olympians

#5 among Japanese Gymnasts

Olympic Results

1960

Team - Gold

1964

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Gold

Floor Exercise - Silver

Parallel Bars - Gold

1968

Team - Gold

Vault - Silver

Total

Events - 24

Gold - 5

Silver - 2

Yukio Endo was born on January 18, 1937 in Yanaisado, Japan, the son of a pharmacist, and participated in gymnastics as a youth, but graduated from college before he made the Japanese Olympic team for the first time in 1960.

When they arrived in Rome, the Soviet team had won the past 2 team gold medals, with the Japanese taking silver in 1956. Endo was the 3rd-highest-scoring member of the team during the team event in Rome, and for the first time in their history, the Japanese won team gold, beating the Soviets by 2.5 points.

The individual all-around medals were determined based on performances during the team event, and Endo finished in 5th place among all participants, falling behind 2 of his teammates, and 2 members of the Soviet team. The top 6 in each individual apparatus qualified for the event finals, and Endo qualified for 2, the vault and the horizontal bar. He was tied for 6th on the parallel bars, but the tiebreaker went to Yury Titov of the USSR. He ended up finishing 4th in the horizontal bar and 5th in the vault, putting him in the top 5 in four events, but he earned only the team medal that year.

In 1962, he won the World Championship in the floor exercise, his only individual win in the world championships. By 1964, he had become the strongest member of the Japanese team, and when they went to defend their gold medal in Tokyo, they were successful, once again beating the Soviets by 2.5 points.

When the individual all-around scored were tabulated, Endo had pulled off a gold medal victory that was a small surprise. He had taken all-around silver at the last world championship, but he dominated this time, winning by 0.55 points, which was more than the gap between 2nd and 8th place. He also qualified for 5 of the 6 event finals, failing only in the pommel horse.

Endo was the top qualifier in floor exercise, and was the defending world champion, but in the final, he had his worst performance, and fell down to silver, while Franco Menichelli of Italy leapfrogged him for gold. He was the #3 qualifier in the vault, but another poor performance dropped him to 6th after the final.

The parallel bars were different, however. He was the top qualifier once again, but barely ahead of 3 others. He put up a 9.9 score in the final to run away with the gold, while nobody else exceeded 9.7. He was third qualifier in the horizontal bar, but fell to 5th after the final, and finished 6th in the rings despite qualifying at the top. He finished his home Olympics with 3 golds and a silver, but he could have had so much more.

Endo was back for his 3rd Olympics in 1968, but he was no longer the star of the Japanese team. He still performed well in the team event, but was 5th best on the strong Japanese team, as they won their third straight gold medal, this time beating the Soviets by 4.8 points.

Even though he was the 5th-best member of the Japanese team, that still was good enough to place him 8th overall in the individual all-around, and he qualified for 2 event finals, the vault and the horizontal bar. Endo was tied for second after qualifying in the vault, but after teammate Takeshi Kato struggled in the final, Mikhail Voronin of the USSR moved up to gold, while Endo stayed in silver medal position. Endo was put in the horizontal bar final after Sawao Kato decided not to compete, but he didn't improve from his 6th place entry into the final.

He retired after the 1968 Olympics, and became a coach and professor. He coached the Japanese team at the 1972 Olympics, where they again won gold, and was later president of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He died of cancer in Tokyo on March 25, 2009. With his qualifying scores, especially in 1964, he could easily have ended up with 11 Olympic medals, but he did end up with 7, five of them gold, including a dominant all-around win, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #75 - Mario Zanin

Mario Zanin

Italy

Road Cycling

Overall Ranks

#4 among Italian Olympians

#4 among Road Cyclists

#3 among Italian Cyclists

Olympic Results

1964

Road Race - Gold

Total

Events - 1

Gold - 1

Mario Zanin was born on July 3, 1940 in Santa Lucia di Piave, Italy, and grew up playing soccer until he broke an ankle, at which point he switched to cycling. Prior to his appearance in the Olympics, he had won a couple of amateur races in Italy, including the national amateur road race in 1964.

He competed in the road race in 1964 in Tokyo, on an interesting course. It consisted of 8 laps of a 24 km course, which featured only one difficult climb, and due to that, and rainy weather on the day of the race, no one was ever able to separate from the pack for long. Each time a rider tried to break away, he was quickly pulled back into the pack, and by the end, there were 99 riders who finished within 0.2 seconds of each other. Zanin was one of two in the pack who was able to separate right before the finish, but only by a little over a bicycle length, and he was able to edge out Kjell Rodian of Denmark for the gold medal.

He turned pro soon after the Olympics, but his only professional victory was a single stage of the Vuelta a Espana, Spain's version of the Tour de France, before his retirement in 1968. Even though he only competed in a single event in his Olympic career, and it was an extremely close win, his ability to pull away from the pack when it mattered made him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #90 - Yury Titov

Yury Titov

USSR

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#18 among Gymnasts

#12 among Male Gymnasts

#9 among Soviet Olympians

#5 among Soviet Male Gymnasts

Olympic Results

1956

Individual All-Around - Bronze

Team - Gold

Vault - Bronze

Horizontal Bar - Silver

1960

Individual All-Around - Bronze

Team - Silver

Floor Exercise - Silver

1964

Team - Silver

Horizontal Bar - Silver

Total

Events - 24

Gold - 1

Silver - 5

Bronze - 3

Yury Yevlampiyevich Titov was born on November 27, 1935 on Omsk, USSR, and took up grymnastics at age 14. By the time he was 19 years old, he had been named to the Soviet national team, and his first major international competition was the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.

That year, all of the gymnastic events were held at once, with each gymnast's score counting toward the individual event, the all-around, and the team event at the same time. Titov's best individual event was the horizontal bar, where he scored a 19.4, good enough for the silver medal, but 0.2 points behind Takashi Ono of Japan, who won the gold.

He won another individual medal in the vault, this one a bronze. He was only 0.1 points behind the gold medalists, so his overall score was still very good. He came in 5th place in two of the other individual events, and finished in the top 10 in all 6, which helped him earn the bronze medal in the individual all-around, though he was more than 0.4 points behind the other medalists, Ono and Viktor Chukarin, his Soviet teammate.

The team event was close. The USSR had won gold in 1952, and Chukarin had won his second straight all-around gold, and with Titov as a strong second scorer on the team, the Soviets were able to defeat the Japanese team by 1.85 points, earning a gold medal for the team. This would be the last time Japan lost the team event until 1980, when they didn't compete.

In 1960, the format had been updated so that the individual events had a final round after the team and all-around events had been completed. In the individual all-around, Titov finished third again, earning a repeat bronze, with Ono again taking the silver, and a new Soviet teammate, Boris Shakhlin, taking the gold.

In the team event, the 6 Japanese gymnasts all finished among the top 9 overall, making them very hard to beat. With Shakhlin and Titov's impressive individual scores, they were able to make it close, but the Soviets still lost by 2.5 points, but were 13.65 points ahead of Italy, who won bronze.

Titov qualified for all 6 event finals, but only managed to medal in one, the floor exercise. In that event, he qualified in second, and managed to hold on to it after the final performance, though the third place finisher closed the gap a little, but he still managed to take silver. He had qualified third in both the rings and the pommel horse, but poor final performances dropped him out of the medals in each, but it was still very impressive that he qualified for all 6 finals.

The format remained the same in 1964, when Titov returned for his third Olympics. By that time, he had been surpassed by several of his teammates, and finished 13th overall in the individual all-around, fifth among the Soviets, and a full point short of the medals. In the team event, there were still just two teams competing for gold, but the Soviets lost to Japan again by an identical 2.5 point margin to repeat as silver medalists.

Titov qualified for only one event final that year, the horizontal bar, where he had earned his first medal back in 1956. He qualified #2 behind Shakhlin, then scored a 9.8 in his final performance, which allowed him to hold onto his spot and earn another silver medal. He remained on the national team for two more years, then retired after the 1966 World Championships, with 9 Olympic medals to his name.

After competing in the Olympics 3 different times, Titov ended his career with only 1 gold medal, which came in the team event in 1956, but he won 5 silvers and 3 bronzes as well, and was in the top six 7 other times. While he was never the best in the world, or even in his own country, he was near the top so often and for so long, that he has earned a spot as one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #112 - Iolanda Balas

Iolanda Balas

Romania

Athletics

Overall Ranks

#33 among Track & Field Athletes

#8 among Female Track & Field Athletes

#1 among Romanian Olympians

Olympic Results

1960

High Jump - Gold

1964

High Jump - Gold

Total

Events - 3

Gold - 2

Iolanda Balas was born on December 12, 1936 in Timisoara, Romania, to Hungarian parents. Her father served in the Hungarian army during World War II and was captured by the Soviets, who eventually returned him to Hungary, where he was forced to stay. Balas and her mother tried to return to Hungary to reunite the family after the war, but were not allowed to leave by the Romanian government.

She began jumping at age 13, and by 1955, when she was 18 years old, she had set the world record with a jump of 1.75 meters (5'9"). She went to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne as the favorite as a result, and easily cleared both heights in qualifying, along with 17 others jumpers. She was one of 6 jumpers to clear 1.64 meters without missing a jump, and one of 10 to clear the height eventually.

Only 7 jumpers were able to succeed at 1.67 meters, with 4 doing it on the first try, while Balas needed a second attempt. and 2 others made in on the third and final try. When the bar went up to 1.7 meters, only Millie McDaniel of the USA was successful, giving her the gold medal. She then had the bar raised to 1.76 meters, which she cleared on her second attempt to break Balas' world record. Because she had missed a jump on the previous height, Balas was awarded 5th place behind the jumpers who didn't need an extra attempt.

Balas took the world record back in 1958, becoming the first woman to reach 1.8 meters, and she was once again the favorite in 1960 in Rome. She was the last to start jumping that year, waiting until the bar was at 1.6 meters to take her first attempt, which she made easily. 15 jumpers cleared 1.65 meters to advance to the final round, but only 6 had made it without a miss.

The entire field cleared 1.65 again in the final, but 10 jumpers were unable to get to 1.68, leaving 5 jumpers, none of whom had missed yet. Three jumpers were successful on the first jump at 1.71, with another making it on her final attempt, but at 1.73, only Balas was successful, and she had her first gold, but she didn't stop there, going over at 1.77, then 1.81, and then 1.85, before failing at 1.87. Her new Olympic record jump was about 6'1", 6 inches higher than any other jumper in the competition.

The next year, she set another new world record of 1.91 meters (6'3"), which would not be broken for 10 years. She had a torn ankle tendon when the 1964 Olympics came around, but competed anyway. At that point she hadn't lost a single competition in 8 years, since her failure in her first Olympics, but she was seen as possibly vulnerable due to the injury.

15 jumpers cleared 1.68 meters to qualify for the final, but 3 dropped when attempting that height again in the final. One more was lost at 1.71, but the field really narrowed at 1.74, with 7 missing at that height. Balas skipped that height to nurse her injury, but made it over 1.76 on her first jump, along with Michele Mason Brown of Australia, with one other jumper making it on the final attempt. 

All 3 were successful again at 1.78, but the Soviet challenger dropped off at 1.8. At 1.82, Mason-Brown was unable to clear, giving Balas a second straight gold medal, but she kept going despite her injury, clearing both 1.86 and 1.90 on the first try, setting a new Olympic record. She then attempted to break her world record by jumping 1.92, but missed on all 3 attempts. She had again beaten all of her competition by a big margin.

She sat out for the next few years due to injury before officially retiring in 1967, at which point she married her coach, Ioan Soter, and became a physical education teacher. If she had performed up to her potential in her first Olympics, she would have been much higher on this list, but as it stands, her two dominant gold medal wins still make her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.

Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #123 - Shuji Tsurumi

Shuji Tsurumi

Japan

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#24 among Gymnasts

#14 among Male Gymnasts

#7 among Japanese Olympians

#6 among Japanese Gymnasts

Olympic Results

1960

Team - Gold

Pommel Horse - Bronze

1964

Individual All-Around - Silver

Team - Gold

Parallel Bars - Silver

Pommel Horse - Silver

Total

Events - 16

Gold - 2

Silver - 3

Bronze - 1

Shuji Tsurumi was born on January 29, 1938 in Tokyo, Japan, and made the Japanese Olympic gymnastic team just as they were rising. The Japanese had won the team silver medal in 1956, the first time they had won a team gymnastics medal.

Tsurumi contributed immediately upon making the team, taking 4th place in the Individual All-Around competition in Rome in 1960, falling one point short of winning a medal. All 6 Japanese team members finished among the top 9 in the Individual All-Around, with Tsurumi the second-highest scorer on the team behind Takashi Ono. Those performances led to the Japanese winning the team gold for the first time, 2.5 points ahead of the defending champion Soviets.

Tsurumi qualified for the event finals in two events, the vault and the pommel horse. He was the sixth and final qualifier in the vault, with a 9.5, which he improved to 9.65 in the final, but he still finished 6th. He was also the final qualifier in the pommel horse, but his final routine pushed him ahead of 3 other finalists, earning him a bronze medal.

In 1964, the Olympics went to Tokyo for the first time, and the Japanese were excited to compete in front of their home fans. In the Individual All-Around, the gold went to Tsurumi's teammate, Yukio Endo, by just over half a point, but Tsurumi took the silver in his hometown. This time all 6 Japanese team members were in the top 11, and they again won the team gold by 2.5 points ahead of the USSR.

This time Tsurumi qualified for 4 individual event finals, the same two as before, plus rings and parallel bars. He qualified 5th in the rings, and didn't improve in the final. He was the #3 qualifier in the pommel horse, where he had won bronze 4 years earlier, but this time he improved to win the silver, losing only to Miroslav Cerar of Yugoslavia, considered by many to be the greatest pommel horse athlete of all time.

Just like 4 years earlier, he was the final qualifier in the vault, but unlike last time, he was able to improve his standing, moving up to 4th place, falling less than one tenth of a point short of another medal. He was #2 in qualifying in the parallel bars, behind Endo, but after Endo had a nearly flawless routine to clinch the gold, Tsurumi was forced to settle for the silver, his third individual silver of 1964.

He continued competing for a couple more years, winning all-around individual silver in the 1966 World Championships, but he retired before the 1968 Olympics came around. He was a big part of the first two team championships of the Japanese gymnastics dynasty, and was in the top 4 of the individual competition both times. That, plus his 6 total Olympic medals, make him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.