Gymnastics at the 1968 Summer Olympics

Gymnastics at the Games of the XIX Olympiad
Venue	National Auditorium
Dates	21 October – 26 October 1968
←  1964 1972  →

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 details	Sawao Kato   Japan	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union	Akinori Nakayama   Japan
Team all-around details	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 details	Sawao Kato   Japan	Akinori Nakayama   Japan	Takeshi Katō   Japan
Horizontal bar details	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union	none awarded	Eizo Kenmotsu   Japan
	Akinori Nakayama   Japan
Parallel bars details	Akinori Nakayama   Japan	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union	Viktor Klimenko   Soviet Union
Pommel horse details	Miroslav Cerar   Yugoslavia	Olli Laiho   Finland	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union
Rings details	Akinori Nakayama   Japan	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union	Sawao Kato   Japan
Vault details	Mikhail Voronin   Soviet Union	Yukio Endo   Japan	Sergei Diomidov   Soviet Union

Women's events

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Individual all-around details	Věra Čáslavská   Czechoslovakia	Zinaida Voronina   Soviet Union	Natalia Kuchinskaya   Soviet Union
Team all-around details	Soviet Union  (URS) Lyubov Burda Olga Karasyova Natalia Kuchinskaya Larisa Petrik Ludmilla Tourischeva Zinaida Voronina	Czechoslovakia  (TCH) Věra Čáslavská Marianna Krajčírová Jana Kubičková Hana Lišková Bohumila Řimnáčová Miroslava Skleničková	East Germany  (GDR) Maritta Bauerschmidt Karin Janz Marianne Noack Magdalena Schmidt Ute Starke Erika Zuchold
Balance beam details	Natalia Kuchinskaya   Soviet Union	Věra Čáslavská   Czechoslovakia	Larisa Petrik   Soviet Union
Floor exercise details	Larisa Petrik   Soviet Union	none awarded	Natalia Kuchinskaya   Soviet Union
	Věra Čáslavská   Czechoslovakia
Uneven bars details	Věra Čáslavská   Czechoslovakia	Karin Janz   East Germany	Zinaida Voronina   Soviet Union
Vault details	Věra Čáslavská   Czechoslovakia	Erika Zuchold   East Germany	Zinaida Voronina   Soviet Union

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 over Čáslavská's public defiance of the Soviets due to the Prague Spring

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 in the Prague Spring event. A similar controversy occurred in the balance beam, where Čáskavská was denied gold altogether. ^[2]

See also

• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (men)
• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (women)

References

1. "Gymnastics at the 1968 Mexico City Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
2. "'I will sweat blood to defeat invaders' representatives' - 1968's forgotten Olympic protest". BBC Sport. 20 October 2018. Archived from the original on 2023-02-21.

External links

• Official Olympic Report
• www.gymnasticsresults.com
• www.gymn-forum.net