Gymnastics at the 1968 Summer Olympics

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 nations)		16	12	14	42

Controversy[]

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.

See also[]

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

References[]

External links[]

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