Larisa Latynina
Larisa Latynina was born in 1934, grew up in Ukraine, where the brutality of Stalin’s repression and Hitler’s invasion occurred. It started in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, Latynina got a staggering nine golds, five silvers and four bronze medals throughout three Olympic Games. In 1958, Latynina joined the World Championships while she is almost three months pregnant and even won five gold medals. After she retired from competition, she became a national gymnastics team coach of the Soviet women’s team who won gold in 1968, 1972, and 1976, Latynina then decided to retired from coaching. Then, Latynina was an organizer for the 1980 Moscow Games’ gymnastics competition. Latynina from the Soviet Union was a record-holder, having won no less than 18 Olympic medals, five of them gold. It was 2012 when Michael Phelps defeated her. After winning the Olympics between 1956 and 1964, she became the coach of the Soviet team. Today, she lives in a rural estate in Russia.
Larisa Latynina
Paul Hamm
Paul Hamm became the first U.S. male gymnast to win the gold of the 2004 Athens Olympics all-around. He also became the only American gymnast to have won the all-around in both the Olympics and the Gymnastics World Championships. This gold medal was controversial because of a scoring error that happened to one of his competitors, but it remained with Hamm, who also won a pair of silvers. After failing to make the team in 2008 and 2012, he made appearances on the Japanese version of Ninja Warrior. Hamm also has shown us some of his spectacular acting performance in the movies The Vampire Diaries and Sasuke.
Paul Hamm