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Larissa Latynina

Larissa Semyonovna Latynina (Лари́са Семёновна Латы́нина; born December 27, 1934 in Kherson, Ukrainian SSR) is a Russian and former Soviet gymnast who was the first female athlete to win nine Olympic golds. She holds the record for winning the most Olympic medals at 18 (nine gold medals, five silver and four bronze). She also holds the record for most individual medals (14 outside of team events) in Olympic history.

Early life

Born Larisa Dirij, she first practiced ballet, but turned to gymnastics after her choreographer moved out of town. She graduated from high school in 1953 and moved to Kiev to attend the Lenin Polytechnic Institute and continue training. There Latynina trained at the Burevestnik Voluntary Sports Society. At the age of 19, she debuted internationally at the 1954 Rome World Championships, winning the gold medal in the team competition.

Gymnastics career

At the 1956 Summer Olympics, she competed with Ágnes Keleti of Hungary to become the most successful gymnast of the Olympics. Latynina beat Keleti in the all-around event, and the Soviet team also won the team event. In the event finals, Latynina won gold medals on the floor (shared with Keleti) and vault, a silver medal on the uneven bars, and a bronze medal in the now discontinued team event with portable apparatus. Keleti also won six medals: four golds and two silvers.

After a very successful World Championships in 1958 (winning five out of six titles despite competing whilst pregnant), Latynina was the favorite for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. In the all-around event she led the Soviet Union to take the first four places, thereby also securing a win in the team competition by a margin of nine points. Latynina also successfully defended her floor title, took silver medals in the balance beam and uneven bars events, and bronze in the vault competition.

Latynina won all-around titles at the 1962 World Championships, beating Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia. Still the defending World Champion at the 1964 Summer Olympics, she was beaten by Čáslavská in the all-around competition. Latynina did however add two more gold medals to her tally, winning the team event and the floor event both for the third time in a row. A silver medal and two bronzes in the other apparatus events brought her total of Olympic medals to eighteen — nine gold medals, five silver and four bronze. She won a medal in every event in which she competed, except for the 1956 balance beam where she came fourth. Her nine gold medals makes her second on the list of most Olympic gold medalists together with Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi, only behind Michael Phelps, who has 14. She is the only woman to have won nine gold medals.

Retirement

Latynina retired after the 1966 World Championships and became a coach for the Soviet national gymnastics team, a position she held until 1977. She organized the gymnastics competition at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, and around the year 2000 appeared in the "Soviet Sports Wars" episode of the PBS documentary The Red Files, discussing her experiences as a gymnast and Soviet coach.

She is a citizen of Russia, and lives in her estate near the town Semenovskoye, Moscow region.

Awards and honors

1989: Olympic Order (silver), International Olympic Committee
1998: Inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame

Medals
Year	Championship	Medals and Disciplines
1954	World Championship	1 gold medal (Teams)
1956	Olympic Games	4 gold medals (All-Around, Teams, Floor Exercise and Vault) 1 silver medal (Bars) 1 bronze medal (Object Exercise)
1957	European Championship	5 gold medals (All-Around, Vault, Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise)
1958	World Championship	5 gold medals (Teams, All-Around, Vault, Bars and Balance Beam) 1 silver medal(Floor Exercise)
1960	Olympic Games	3 gold medals (All-Around, Teams and Floor Exercise) 2 silver medals (Bars and Balance Beam) 1 bronze medal (Vault)
1961	European Championship	2 gold medals (All-Around and Floor Exercise) 2 silver medals (Bars and Balance Beam)
1962	World Championship	3 gold medals (Teams, All-Around and Floor Exercise) 2 silver medals (Vault and Balance Beam) 1 bronze medal (Bars)
1964	Olympic Games	2 gold medals (Teams and Floor Exercise), 2 silver medals (All-Around and Vault) 2 bronze medals (Bars and Balance Beam)
1965	European Championship	4 silver medals (All-Around, Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise) 1 bronze medal (Vault)
1966	World Championship	1 silver medal (Teams)