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Larisa
Latynina
Larisa Latynina is one of the most important athletes worldwide in gymnastics and probably the best gymnast in the history of Soviet sport. Her  participation in the Olympic Games of Tokyo marked the end of a great career, which had included so many and so remarkable distinctions that no other female athlete in the world had achieved until then.
She was born in Kherson, in the Ukraine, in December 1934. Her presence in gymnastics was the result of the systematic development of sport in her country, especially after World War II. As early as in the 1950s she was singled out from many female athletes from the Soviet Union thanks to her talent and technique. Her trainer was Alexander Mishakov, the trainer of many Soviet Olympic winners. Her training was incorporated in a programme for the development of mass sport, which aimed at discovering many high-level athletes, capable of competing successfully with athletes from countries that were developed in the field of sport.
The brilliant career of Latynina has been associated with her presence in three Olympic organizations, in which she excelled as no other female athlete in the world. Besides, it is characteristic that she had been the only gymnast to win medals in all the events included in the gymnastics programme of two Olympic organizations.
The first time she participated in the Olympics was in 1956 in Melbourne, where she gathered 4 gold medals. In 1958 she won five gold medals in the world championship held in Moscow and in the Rome Olympics, two years later, she added three more to her rich collection.
The Tokyo Olympics marked for the Soviet champion the end of an outstanding career. She succeeded in winning two more gold medals, concluding her presence in the Olympic Games with nine golds, five silvers and four bronzes. Apart from that, she had won another 28 medals in world and European championships.
In the years that followed Latynina was designated trainer of the Soviet women's gymnastics team and contributed greatly to the formation of important female athletes, who excelled in the following Olympic organizations.
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