Larisa Semyonovna Latynina is a Soviet former artistic gymnast. Between 1956 and 1964 she won 14 individual Olympic medals and four team medals. She holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals by a female gymnast with nine. Her total of 18 Olympic medals was a record for 48 years. She held the record for individual event medals for over 52 years, winning 14. She is credited with helping to establish the Soviet Union as a dominant force in gymnastics.
Věra Čáslavská was a Czechoslovak artistic gymnast and Czech sports official. She won a total of 22 international titles between 1959 and 1968 including seven Olympic gold medals, four world titles and eleven European championships. Čáslavská is the most decorated Czech gymnast in history and is one of only three female gymnasts, along with the Soviet Larisa Latynina and American Simone Biles, to win the all-around gold medal at two Olympics. She remains the only gymnast, male or female, to have won an Olympic gold medal in each individual event. She was also the first gymnast to achieve a perfect 10 at a major competition in the post-1952 era. She held the record for the most individual gold medals among all female athletes in Olympic history as well until it was broken by swimmer Katie Ledecky in 2024.
Olga Valentinovna Korbut is a Belarusian retired gymnast who competed for the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the "Sparrow from Minsk", she won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympic Games, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the Soviet team, and was the inaugural inductee to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1988.
Nellie Vladimirovna Kim is a retired Soviet and Belarusian gymnast of Sakhalin Korean and Tatar descent who won three gold medals and a silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, and two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She was the second woman in Olympic history to earn a perfect 10 score and the first woman to score it on the vault and on the floor exercise, rivaling Nadia Comăneci, Ludmilla Tourischeva, and other strong competitors of the 1970s.
Polina Ghrighorievna Astakhova was a Soviet and Ukrainian artistic gymnast. She won ten medals at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics.
Lavinia Corina Miloșovici is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast. An exceptionally successful athlete on the international competition circuit, Miloșovici, also known as "Milo" in the gymnastics community, is considered to be one of Romania's top gymnasts ever and one of the most prolific female all-around medalists ever, earning a total 19 World Championships or Olympic medals in a span of six years. She medalled in every single World Championships meet, Olympic Games and European Championships between 1991 and 1996, and is only the third female gymnast ever, after Larisa Latynina and Věra Čáslavská, to win at least one World Championships or Olympic title on all four events. Miloșovici was also the last gymnast along with Lu Li to ever receive the perfect mark of 10.0 in an Olympic competition and the last to receive the benchmark score of 9.95 at the World Championships. She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2011. Her trademarks included her four-event mastery, consistency, longevity, versatile skill set, and leadership abilities.
Sofia Ivanovna Muratova was a Soviet gymnast. She competed in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics and won eight medals.
Ágnes Keleti is a Hungarian retired Olympic and world champion artistic gymnast and coach. She is the oldest living Olympic champion and medallist, reaching her 100th birthday on 9 January 2021. While representing Hungary at the Summer Olympics, she won 10 Olympic medals including five gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals, and is considered to be one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes of all time. Keleti holds more Olympic medals than any other individual with Israeli citizenship, and more Olympic medals than any other Jew, except Mark Spitz. She was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Summer Olympics. In 1957, Keleti immigrated to Israel, where she lived before returning to Hungary in 2015.
Tamara Ivanovna Manina is a retired Soviet Olympic gymnast and a sports scientist.
The Soviet Union (USSR) competed at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. 272 competitors, 233 men and 39 women, took part in 135 events in 17 sports. the Netherlands, Spain, the Netherlands Antilles, Egypt, Lebanon, Cambodia, Iraq and Switzerland protested against this by boycotting the games. As a partial support to the Dutch-led boycott, Soviet athletes under the Olympic flag instead of the national flag.
The Soviet Union (USSR) competed at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. 283 competitors, 233 men and 50 women, took part in 145 events in 17 sports.
Gertrud "Trudi" Meyer was a German gymnast who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics. In 1936 she won the gold medal as a member of the German gymnastics team.
Margit Korondi was a Hungarian gymnast. She competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where she received a gold medal in uneven bars, a silver medal in team all-around, and four bronze medals. At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, she received a gold medal in team portable apparatus and a silver medal in team all-around.
Prior to 1981, the minimum required age to compete in senior events sanctioned by the FIG was 14. The earliest champions in women's gymnastics tended to be in their 20s; most had studied ballet for years before entering the sport. Hungarian gymnast Ágnes Keleti won individual gold medals at the age of 35 at the 1956 Olympics. Larisa Latynina, the first great Soviet gymnast, won her first Olympic all-around medal at the age of 21, her second at 25 and her third at 29; she became the 1958 World Champion while pregnant with her daughter. Czech gymnast Věra Čáslavská, who followed Latynina to become a two-time Olympic all-around champion, was 22 before she started winning gold medals at the highest level of the sport, and won her final Olympic all-around title at the age of 26.
The Soviet Union women's national artistic gymnastics team represented the Soviet Union in FIG international competitions. They were the dominant force in the sport from the 1950s until the Soviet Union's collapse. They lead the medal tally for women's artistic gymnastics with 88 medals including 33 gold. Larisa Latynina is also the most decorated female athlete at the Olympic games with a total of 18 medals. Soviet dominance was unprecedented in scale and longevity and was likely the result of the country's heavy investment in mass and elite sports to fulfill its political agenda.
The Hungary women's national artistic gymnastics team represents Hungary in FIG international competitions.
