It doesn’t happen often….but every “once in a blue moon” a video rolls up to be posted that encompasses participants that we have no idea who the featured competitors might be…..and in this 1979 USA and USSR gymnastics exhibition seen on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, we have one of those “once in a blue moon” videos. Now,…
Marcia Frederick is a retired American gymnast….who became the first American woman to win a gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships in the uneven parallel bars in Strasbourg, France in 1978. After having qualified for the 1980 Olympic team, she was the favorite for a medal in Moscow….but missed due to a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics led by the US President Jimmy…
We here at ImaSportsphile feel really fortunate to have so much footage of gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi …..cuz he molded the two most notable and historic women’t gymnast to ever grace a gymnastic competition….Nadie Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton…..The Perfect 10 and The 1st American….for the truth be told….until Simone Biles came along…..there have never…
Aleksandr Dityatin is a retired Soviet/Russian gymnast….who was a three-time Olympic champion….and Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR…..after winning eight medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games….where he set the record for achieving the most medals of any type at a single Olympic Games….the American swimmer Michael Phelps has now twice equaled this record, at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. Dityatin’s first Olympic success was at…
Kurt Thomas is an American Olympic gymnast…..who became a member of the US Olympic team at the 1976 Summer Olympics…..then at the 1978 World Championships, Thomas became the first American male gymnast to win a gold medal in floor exercise….and in 1979, he became the first gymnast to receive the James E. Sullivan Award for the best amateur athlete in the US. …
Stella Zakharova is a retired gymnast who competed internationally for the former Soviet Union between 1977 and 1982. She was an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist in team competitions….and won individual all-around titles at other events…..as she won her first all-around championship at the 1976 All-Union School Spartakiade in Russia…..and that same year she placed second overall in the Junior USSR Championships.…
Elena Mukhina (June 1, 1960 – December 22, 2006) was a Soviet gymnast….who won the all-around title at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France…..after which her career was on the rise….and she was being widely touted as the next great Russian gymnastics star until 1979….when a broken leg left her out of several competitions….and the recovery from that injury…
Nikolai Andrianov (October 14, 1952 – March 21, 2011) was a Soviet/Russian gymnast…..who held the record for men for the most Olympic medals at 15….with 7 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 3 bronze medals….until USA swimmer Michael Phelps surpassed him at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Andrianov is the third athlete (male or female) in total Olympic medals after Phelps’s 28…
In a Sports Illustrated article written about the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympic Games women’s gymnastics competitor from Romania, Nadia Comaneci was the following description….“At Montreal, Nadia Comăneci received four of her seven 10’s on the uneven bars….which is an apparatus that demands such a spectacular burst of energy in such a short time….only 23 seconds….that it…